Only the voter can put an end to defections
The writing was on the wall for outgoing Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath ever since the day before Holi, when 22 MLAs, including six ministers, flew off to Bengaluru, allegedly herded by the BJP to topple his government.
The Congress tried its best to woo back the rebels but in vain. The Congress will rightly allege murder of democracy.
But it was also a self-inflicted injury. Jyotiraditya Scindia had been nursing a sense of hurt ever since he lost out to Nath in the race for chief ministership in November 2018.
His frustration and isolation in the party grew after his defeat in the Lok Sabha elections from his stronghold Guna last year.
His attempts to become the MP Congress chief, which would have allowed him some political space, were also nixed.
This set the stage for the BJP to smell blood and it had a willing ally in the disgruntled Scindia. A rudderless and directionless Congress leadership only aided the crisis with its ostrich-like attitude.
But whatever be the cause for Nath’s downfall, it is time to end the nefarious games of defections and toppling of governments by political parties.
The Congress mastered the art of engineering political defections in the seventies and eighties. Other parties subsequently took a leaf out of the Congress book and many Congress governments have fallen victim.
Concerned by these rising cases, many committees gave their suggestions; the Tenth Schedule was inserted in the Constitution, which was amended at least once to make it more stringent, and the highest court of the land also stepped in to stop the menace of Aya Ram, Gaya Ram.
But none of these has had a salutary effect. Quite clearly, legal intervention to force ethical political behaviour has failed.
A foolproof remedy lies only with the voter. If a lawmaker knows that he will not be elected again if he defects, that will serve as the biggest deterrent.
Sooner or later, a drug and vaccine to combat Covid-19 will be developed by scientists and medics, but an antidote to the virus of political defections is only in the hands of the voter.