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Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday called for an amendment in the anti-defection law, suggesting those lawmakers switching to other parties shouldn’t be offered other posts before they are re-elected.
“The anti-defection law has certain loopholes. It allows wholesale defection,” news agency ANI quoted the vice president.
If you want to leave a party, leave and resign from the post. If you want to get re-elected, it is okay. But during that period, you should not be offered any post,” he added while addressing an event on the 50th year of the Press Club in Bengaluru.
“This has to be followed by all. The time has come to amend the anti-defection law because there are certain loopholes,” the vice president said while expressing discontent over the non-effective method of dealing with defectors.
“I personally feel that every political party must have a self code of conduct and see to it that their members follow it. I also feel that the political parties develop a code of conduct not only for their members inside the Parliament but also outside,” Naidu said.
The anti-defection law was brought into effect in 1985 to bring stability to the governments by discouraging lawmakers from switching to other parties.
In the last three years, states like Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka witnessed massive defections with Congress lawmakers quitting the party leading to the fall of the respective governments.
In Karnataka, the 2018 elections threw up a hung assembly. After the Bharatiya Janata Party failed to prove its majority after BS Yediyurappa took oath, the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular formed the government under the leadership of HD Kumaraswamy. But a year later, the resignations by Congress and JDS MLAs reduced the government to minority and the government later fell. The rebel MLAs were later elected on a BJP ticket in the by-elections.
In 2018, the Congress had won Madhya Pradesh elections and formed government under Kamal Nath. Less than a year later, 23 Congress MLAs including six ministers owing allegiance to Jyotiraditya Scindia resigned. After failing to pacify rebel MLAs, Nath resigned hours before he faced the trust vote.
The MLAs later joined the BJP government after winning by-elections.
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