No need to amend anti-defection law, it has stood test of time: Govt

New Delhi, December 15

Amid opposition anxieties with regard to defections and horse-trading, the government on Thursday told Parliament there was no cause to amend the anti-defection law as it had stood the test of time.

‘Simultaneous polls will save big money’

Noting that elections in India are “big budget affairs”, Minister for Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju on Thursday said in the Rajya Sabha that holding simultaneous polls to the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies would result in huge saving to the exchequer.

Responding to a question in the Rajya Sabha by Congress MP from Karnataka GC Chadrashekhar, who sought to know if the government was planning to strengthen the law, Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju said “there appears to be no need to amend the law as of now”.

“The Tenth Schedule was inserted in the Constitution by the Constitution (Fifty-second Amendment) Act, 1985. It sets the provisions for the disqualification of elected members on the grounds of defection to another political party. In the recent past, owing to the implementation of the Tenth Schedule, there has been a substantive decrease in the defection cases. Since the provisions of the Tenth Schedule have stood the test of time and several judicial scrutinies, there does not appear to be any need for carrying out any amendments as of now,” the minister said.

The reply was in response to a query by Chandrashekhar on whether the government is aware that the toppling of state governments across the country has become common and whether the government is planning to strengthen the anti-defection law. The government clarification is significant as the opposition has been accusing the BJP-ruled Centre of “stealing mandates state after state”.

Earlier this year, the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi government fell after a rebellion by the ruling Shiv Sena’s Eknath Shinde and majority Sena MLAs. The rebel Sena faction went on to form a government with the BJP.

In 2019, when BJP’s Devendra Fadnavis took oath as Maharashtra CM within 24 hours of Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray being declared CM-designate of the Sena-Congress-NCP alliance, the coalition partners had moved the Supreme Court to quash “the arbitrary and malafide actions of state Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari in swearing in Fadnavis at an 8 am ceremony in Raj Bhavan”.