Historical Background of Anti-Defection Law I...

Historical Background of Anti-Defection Law In India

Author Name : Anmolpreet kaur

1. INTRODUCTION

The Parliamentary form of government is the first pillar of democracy. Democracy means power to the people and power to the people means citizen’s right to select representatives for the governance of the country. In India the first elected Parliament came into being in May, 1952, however, the tragedy in our democracy is that the behavior of the elected representatives becomes more and more rude and power hungry. Split in a party or defection of the legislators, change of sides, withdrawal of support became the common phenomenon with the coming of coalition era

The trend of defection is not something that is peculiar to India. It is prevalent in democracies all over the world, which have adopted the party system. It is almost seventy years since India had awoken to freedom. Nevertheless, the need for tackling defection was felt after 1967. Before 1967, the cases of defection were mostly at the level of State. These defections immensely affected the fabric of Indian democracy. These defections also occurred because of ideological differences and not just on account of want of office. After the fourth general election the defections took an alarming turn, as many legislators changed sides for the want of office and further unexpectedly switched back when the promises were not fulfilled. This practice of switching sides to gain office came to be known as 'Horse-Trading'