Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) on Monday backed senior advocate and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal’s call for stricter provisions against elected representatives who defect from the political parties on whose symbols they were elected.
CJP national convener Abhijeet Dipke described the proposal as the “need of the hour”, while co-convener Saurav Das said Sibal’s suggestion was in line with the organisation’s first demand charter.
Sibal recently had called for amendments to the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution to prevent the merger provision from being used as a “loophole for mass walkouts”.
Under the existing anti-defection law, legislators are protected from disqualification if at least two-thirds of the members of a legislature party merge with another political party. Sibal argued that the provision should be amended to ensure that “a merger is a merger of political parties and not a collective walkout by legislators”.
Backing the proposal, Saurav Das said, “Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal's proposal to ban any MP and MLA who gets elected on Party X's symbol and later defects to Party Y for money or under pressure should be welcomed. He calls for a 10-year ban.”
He said the CJP’s demand charter sought an even stricter penalty, including a 20-year bar on holding public office or contesting elections.
“Breaking political parties, bribing MPs with 50-100 crore, toppling governments is a fraud committed on the country. Such fraud should never happen. The Anti-Defection law is outdated. The ruling party has ensured its misuse in its lust for eternal power. The young will change this,” Das said.
Dipke reiterated the demand in a post on X, saying, “Any elected representative who switches parties after being elected should be barred from holding public office.”
The demand has come amid renewed attention to the anti-defection law and the two-thirds merger provision following political developments involving the Trinamool Congress.
In the Lok Sabha, 20 of the TMC’s 28 MPs have announced that they are leaving the party and joining the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI), while extending support to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
In West Bengal, a faction led by Ritabrata Banerjee has also sought recognition as the TMC and staked claim to the party’s name, organisational control, assets and election symbol. The faction has claimed the support of a majority of the party’s newly elected MLAs. The Election Commission is examining the competing claims of the two factions.
The developments have brought renewed focus on the Tenth Schedule, which provides protection from disqualification when at least two-thirds of the members of a legislature party are deemed to have merged with another political party.
The issue has also arisen in the context of the defection of seven Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha MPs to the BJP earlier this year, with the group invoking the two-thirds merger provision.
Similar questions over the anti-defection law arose following the splits in the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra. In 2022, Eknath Shinde led a majority of Shiv Sena MLAs away from the Uddhav Thackeray-led faction, paving the way for a change of government. In 2023, Ajit Pawar split the NCP and joined the BJP-led government with a group of legislators.
(With inputs from PTI)