Maharashtra Shiv Sena crisis: What is anti-defection law?
Maharashtra Shiv Sena political crisis explained: The anti-defection law punishes individual MPs/ MLAs for leaving one party for another. But what constitutes defection? Who is the deciding authority? Has the anti-defection law ensured the stability of governments?
Maharashtra Minister Eknath Shinde, leader of the revolt against Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, has said that 40 lawmakers are with him. Reports said that the rebel group includes 33 MLAs of the 55-member Shiv Sena legislature party, and seven Independents supporting the state government.
Under the Constitution, a rebel group must have at least two-thirds of the total MLAs of a party in order to break away without attracting punishment under the anti-defection law.
The BJP has 106 MLAs in the current 287-member Assembly. Before Shinde’s revolt, the Sena had 55 MLAs in the House. The NCP’s 53 and Congress’s 44 MLAs took the strength of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi coalition to 152.
The anti-defection law punishes individual MPs/ MLAs for leaving one party for another. It allows a group of MP/ MLAs to join (i.e. merge with) another political party without inviting the penalty for defection. And it does not penalise political parties for encouraging or accepting defecting legislators.
Parliament added these provisions to the Constitution as the Tenth Schedule in 1985, when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister.
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