After Uttar Pradesh, Goa. The political storm in the little western state re-emphasises the inadequacies of the Anti-Defection Act.The law itself is clear enough: a party is said to have split when a third or more of its MLAs or MPs break away. Any number less than a third constitutes illegal defection, not a legal separation.Unfortunately, the arbiter of a split is the Speaker of the House; and speakers are prone to strange behaviour. In Goa, for instance, Tomazino Cardozo effectively outlawed 10 MLAs who had left the Congress in what appeared to be a bona fide split.When Pratapsinh Rane's rump government sought a vote of confidence, Cardozo refused to let the 10 MLAs vote. As a result, Rane won a patently bogus majority. Later, of course, the governor intervened and dismissed Rane.Compare Cardozo to Uttar Pradesh's Speaker. Kesri Nath Tripathi's approbation of the "split" in the BSP in October 1997 which enabled the BJP government to survive left constitutional experts gaping.Tripathi ruled that a third of the BSP's MLAs had split and, next, the new group had further split. Some MLAs no identities revealed returned to the mother party, he said; the rest backed the BJP..preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}If Tripathi used a "two split" scenario to justify defection, Shivraj Patil introduced the term "continuous split" to the Indian political lexicon.As P. V. Narasimha Rao's Congress exercised its mergers and acquisitions options in the 11th Lok Sabha (1991-96) Patil, then Lok Sabha Speaker, facilitated the process by deciding that a party needn't split in one move. Rather, MLAs could break away over a period of time, in dribs and drabs.Truly, the Indian polity has been federalised. Every Assembly's Speaker can give the Anti-Defection Act his own special twist.Unfortunately, the law was designed to curb political immorality, not promote centrifugalism. It is obviously not working. Either take away the Speaker's authority and give it to the courts or dispense with the Act altogether.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Aug 10, 1998--- ENDS ---
