Manipur’s Rajya Sabha election shows how easily power can overrule the anti-defection law

In 2017, Manipur’s Assembly elections threw up a hung house. In the 60-seat House, the Congress emerged the largest party with 28 seats – just three short of a clear majority. Inexplicably, the state governor, Najma Heptullah, invited the Bharatiya Janata Party government to form the government. This when it had only 21 seats.

This unusual decision by the governor set-off a domino effect of questionable decisions within the Manipuri assembly. As many as eight Congress MLAs defected from the Congress to the treasury benches. This in spite of the fact that India’s Constitution forbids defections as per an amendment made in 1985 – popularly known as the anti-defection law. The Congress asked the speaker to disqualify these MLAs.

As per law, disqualification should have meant dismissal from the House. However, the same conflict of interest that drove the governor also powered the speaker’s actions. In what is now a common strategy to skirt the anti-defection law, the speaker simply sat on the disqualification petitions – allowing the defectors to keep on functioning as members of the Manipur Assembly.

Matters reached the courts. On March 18, the Supreme Court barred one Congress MLA from entering the Legislative Assembly, and ruled that he would cease to be a minister...

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