A further twist has been given to the sordid Karnataka drama by the Speaker’s action of disqualifying all 17 rebel MLAs who quit the Assembly or intended to defect to bolster the BJP’s bid to topple the H.D. Kumaraswamy government and form one under B.S. Yediyurappa. Speaker K.R. Ramesh has been in the spotlight during the entire episode. Irrespective of whether his actions were correct or not under the Constitution and all such actions are subject to judicial review, the fact is the Speaker has upheld the spirit of anti-defection. Most defections in the history of independent India’s legislatures are inspired by mercenary causes more than ideological grounds. The trust vote arithmetic is left to the House floor, where it will be tested today, but many of the Speaker’s steps were praiseworthy.
The Speaker upheld the powers of all presiding officers by ignoring the deadlines sought to be thrust, first by the Supreme Court and then by the governor, who was acting absurdly beyond his powers in issuing deadline diktats by the hour. At one point, he told the ruling coalition to hurry up with the trust vote, which it lost. The Speaker has stood up for the supremacy of presiding officers. In resisting all attempts to impose conditions on how a Speaker should conduct himself on the tricky question of resignations, genuine or otherwise, Mr Ramesh has scored points in favour of managing the legislature. It is a different matter that he should now voluntarily give up his post, given that a new government is in place, which intends to bring a vote of no-confidence against him. To uphold the highest traditions of Parliament and the Assemblies, the Speaker must step down after supervising the trust vote on Monday.
The goings-on during the Karnataka imbroglio of a government change were not a great endorsement of the anti-defection laws in place since 1985. What this drama brought to the spotlight was the battle between the traditional whip system of democracy and the mercenary and cynical acts of defections and resignations going against the will of the people. Nothing is cast in stone, and there cannot be a bar on a legislator wishing to resign or opting out of the party through which he was elected. But for him to do so only to gain something by way of an office of a minister or perquisites of being chairman of a government body goes against the very grain of democracy and the people’s vote. The question that arises now is whether we should do away with the anti-defection law, which militates against an individual legislator but allows a large group of them to cross the floor with impunity. There are some basic issues to be addressed if we are to move away from the era of mass defections engineered to deny the will of the people.
