POWER, PRINCIPLE AND THE POLITICS OF DEFECTION

Last weekend was particularly painful for Uddhav Thackeray, with six out of his 9 members of Parliament defecting.

- SHASHI SHEKHAR

Rumours are rife that Samajwadi Party (SP) is next in line to suffer defection. Is it true? SP supremo Akhilesh Yadav has strongly denied the possibility, but Uddhav Thackeray, too, had dismissed similar concerns just before the split.

Where will the trend end that began with the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) disintegration? Is it a part of a bigger strategy? Experts feel the central government wants to urgently pass the delimitation and one-nation-one-election bill in Parliament and the present defections are a reflection of that grand design.

Why is the Bharatiya Janata Party not accommodating rebels in its ranks? The answer is simple. After their win in Odisha and West Bengal, the party feels if it wants to expand further it needs to maintain its ideological purity at all costs. Apart from this the “outsiders” were becoming a bone of contention within the party cadre. The saffron outfit was accused of being a ‘dry cleaning machine’ where any opposition leader could wash off all his or her sins by joining it. You can call the new strategy “killing many birds with a single stone”.

The trend of defection that began in Indian politics in the 1960s is now an established norm.