Be Mains Ready

Approach

• Briefly describe coalition politics and defection.
• State the relation between coalition politics and defection.
• Explain defection and subsequent degradation of democratic process.
• Give a way forward.

Introduction

• The elections of 1967 brought into picture the phenomenon coalitions. Another important feature of the politics after the 1967 election was the role played by defections in the making and unmaking of governments in the States.

Body

• In the years leading up to the fourth general elections (1964), the country witnessed major changes.
• The Congress government lost its popularity among the people in the face of economic crisis as a result of successive failure of monsoons, widespread drought, decline in agricultural production, serious food shortage, depletion of foreign exchange reserves, drop in industrial production and exports, combined with a sharp rise in military expenditure and diversion of resources from planning and economic development. This gave way to the rise of communist and socialst parties with their struggle for greater equality.
• Weakening of Congress system in Indian politics paved the way for the rise of coalition between different ideologies.
• Since no single party had got majority in the 1967 elections, various non-Congress parties came together to form joint legislative parties that supported non-Congress governments.
• This system of coalition politics provided a second power centre, but it also let to degradation of moral ideology of democratic process. It also led to a rise of opportunistic coalitions detrimental to the party on whose ticket they get elected and totally jettisoning their ideological commitments.
• After the 1967 general election, the breakaway Congress legislators played an important role in installing non-Congress governments in different States. Defection means an elected representative leaves the party on whose symbol he/she was elected and joins another party.
• The challenge after the emergence of coalition was to strike a balance between defections on arbitrary and whimsical grounds, and defections on sound ideological and moral grounds which were necessary for refraining the parties from acquiring absolutist tendencies and for encouraging a healthy coalition culture.

Conclusion

• The Anti-defection law, added to the Constitution as the Tenth Schedule by the 52nd amendment of 1985, came as a response to the issue of defection. It was further defined by the 91st Constitutional Amendment Act, 2003.
• Though the legislation has not been able to control defections completely yet, it has ensured that healthy coalitions in the proper spirit of democracy are not curbed.