In the run-up to the 2021 West Bengal Assembly election, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) faced a setback with many party members joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, the BJP ended up losing the polls, which was followed by many turncoats making public appeals for a return to the TMC. The president of the state unit of the Congress in Punjab, Navjot Singh Sidhu, who is all over in the news for criticising his own party, was once a BJP member. In Meghalaya, over two-thirds of Congress MLAs joined Mamata Banerjee’s outfit. This movement of MLAs led to the Congress losing its principal opposition status to Bengal’s ruling party. These are a few of the many examples that show the presence of defectors in Indian politics.

A turncoat in politics is a person who shifts allegiance from one political party to another. The prime motives for such a person to draw away from former allegiances are generally either retaining the status and privileges or getting more power and favour from the other party. One such example of this is Jyotiraditya Scindia, who switched sides from the Congress to the BJP, and was later appointed Union civil aviation minister. Another example is Suvendu Adhikari, a former protégé of Banerjee’s, who joined the BJP and defeated the TMC supremo in the 2021 West Bengal Assembly polls. He is now the leader of the Opposition in the state.

Another example is Mukul Roy, who had walked out on Banerjee in 2017 and joined the BJP with a pledge to strengthen the saffron party in Bengal. However, he returned to the TMC shortly after the 2021 Bengal polls despite winning the seat he contested. He was one of the many BJP members who re-joined the TMC after the state elections, like TMC’s Rajib Banerjee, who joined the BJP ahead of Assembly polls but returned to the TMC later. This shows the phenomenon described by the phrase coined decades ago—’Aaya Ram, Gaya Ram’ remains a truism in politics. After numerous such instances in the assembly polls held last year, the trend is continuing in states where elections are due in the next few months as party-hopping has already gained momentum.

We will discuss about the politicians switching sides, or are expected to do so, ahead of the upcoming Assembly elections in five states—Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur—its impact on politicians and parties, the anti-defection laws, and more. But before this, let’s understand turncoats in detail.

Opportunism is a characteristic of human nature and people often switch allegiance in search of a better chance. In politics, the switch mostly takes place either in groups, often driven by one or more leaders, or individually. The reasons for these types of switches could be either that the former party is no longer serving the goal that was formerly the motivating factor to join the party or that it is not benefiting the person anymore.

Then there is the kind that falls in the Aaya Ram-Gaya Ram category. The expression originated in 1967 when Haryana legislator Gaya Lal won first as an independent candidate, then joined the Congress and changed parties three times again within a fortnight, first by politically switching from the Congress to the United Front, then counter-defecting back to the Congress, and then counter-counter-defecting within nine hours to the United Front again. When Gaya Lal quit the United Front to join the Congress, then party leader Rao Birendra Singh, who had engineered Gaya Lal’s defection to the Congress, brought Gaya Lal to a press conference at Chandigarh and declared that “Gaya Ram was now Aaya Ram.”

In the Indian political ecosystem, the Aaya Ram-Gaya Ram culture has flourished over the years despite stringent anti-defection laws. A latest example of this culture was seen in Punjab where MLA Balwinder Singh Laddi returned to the Congress just six days after leaving the party and joining the BJP.

According to a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), Indian politics has seen many such changing of camps in the last five years. As per the analysis, the BJP was the biggest gainer of defections while the Congress suffered maximum with its leaders switching sides in elections held between 2014 and 2021.

The Congress saw the highest number, 222, leaving the party to join other parties during the assembly and parliamentary elections held in this period, said the report. Another 153 candidates left the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to join a different party during the same period, it said.

Basically, there are three kinds of people who switch parties, Sanjay Kumar, a professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) and a political analyst, told Moneycontrol. “The first type of turncoats are very prominent leaders who have a large group of loyal voters. They are standing on their own, so they are lured by other political parties. When such leaders switch parties, they offer their logic to their core supporters behind changing the allegiance,” Kumar said. Giving examples of turncoats like Adhikari and Scindia, he added that for such leaders, shifting parties does not affect their image because they have very loyal supporters.

The second kind are those who have very small stature. Since they are little known in society, switching parties does not affect their image because they do not win the election on their own but on the basis of the party with which they are aligned, the professor said.

So who gets affected the most by switching parties? They are those who fall between the above two categories, the one in the middle ranks, as per Kumar. They are very cautious about their image. Therefore, if they switch, they need to offer a more logical explanation for doing so to their supporters.

Overall, the professor said leaders changing parties doesn’t affect their image much. “Generally, voters do not see it as a good trend in Indian elections but when it comes to voting, I do not think it affects their voting decisions,” Kumar added.

Yes, but not on a big scale, said the political analyst. In every state and every election, there are floating voters. Falling in the range of 15-20 percent, this chunk is not loyal to any party and makes up its voting decision in the run-up to the polls. When people switch from one party to another, it creates a perception that the second party will more likely to win the election.

“When this perception is created about a party, these floating voters tend to shift in favour of the party that is likely to win the elections. There are only a few of them who vote in favour of the party that has been left by leaders and, thus, create a perception that it is unlikely to win the polls,” Kumar said.

Besides creating the perception, some turncoats are very popular and do bring votes with them. “Take an example of Suvendu Adhikari. Even when the BJP could not perform as it was expected in the Bengal elections, he managed to win the most prestigious ballot battle of the state—Nandigram—by defeating Mamata Banerjee,” he said.

However, there are also some turncoats who could not perform well after switching parties. So basically, there is no set definition of the impact of turncoats when it comes to the overall result of elections, the professor added.

The political climate is heating up in the five states that face elections in the first quarter of 2022. Uttar Pradesh will go to the polls with Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab, with the Election Commission likely to announce the dates for the polls in Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh anytime now. Ahead of the elections, the trend of switching parties has increased in most of these states. Here are some of the leaders who have recently switched parties in these states.

Recently, leaders of the Congress, BSP, Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) including former home minister Rajendra Tripathi joined the BJP on December 24. According to BJP state co-media in-charge Himanshu Dubey, former BSP MLA Krishnapal Singh Rajput (Jhansi), RLD’s Muni Dev Sharma (Bijnor), BSP’s Veer Singh Prajapati (Bulandshahr) and SP founder member Kunwar Balbir Singh Chauhan were among those who joined the party on the day.

In October, several leaders from BSP and Congress joined the BJP. It included former BSP MLAs Suraj Pal and G.M. Singh and Congress vice-president Virendra Kumar Pasi.

In August, jailed gangster and legislator Mukhtar Ansari’s brother, former BSP MLA Sibghatullah Ansari, joined the SP. SP founding member Ambika Chaudhary, who had joined the BSP in 2017, returned to the SP fold along with his supporters.

One of the most talked-about names switching parties ahead of UP elections is BJP MLA from Khalilabad Digvijay Narayan alias Jai Chaubey, who joined the SP, which is being seen as a big setback to the BJP in Purvanchal.

Ahead of the Punjab polls, former Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Jagdeep Singh Nakai and former Congress MLA Shamsher Singh Rai joined the BJP. The two leaders joined the party in the presence of Union minister and the BJP’s Punjab election in-charge Gajendra Shekhawat on December 29.

A day earlier, Congress MLAs Fateh Singh Bajwa and Balwinder Singh Laddi joined the BJP. Besides the two sitting MLAs, former MP Rajdev Singh Khalsa, former MLA Gurtej Singh Ghuriana and United Christian Front of Punjab president Kamal Bakshi were among those who joined the saffron party. However, Laddi rejoined Congress just six days after joining the BJP.

Former MP Ranjit Singh Brahmpura re-joined the SAD in the presence of party stalwart Parkash Singh Badal on December 23. Brahmpura was the patron of the Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa-led SAD (Sanyukt).

Former Goa chief minister and veteran Congress leader Luizinho Faleiro joined the TMC in September to “defeat the BJP”. Along with Faleiro, nine other leaders—Lavoo Mamledar, Yatish Naik, Vijay Vasudev Poi, Mario Pinto De Santana, Anand Naik, Rabindranath Faleiro, Shivdas Sonu Naik, Rajendra Shivaji Kakodkar and Antonio Monteiro Clovis Da Costa—joined the TMC on September 29.

It’s a matter of great pride for me to welcome Former Goa CM, 7-time MLA and stalwart Goan leader Shri @luizinhofaleiro to the Trinamool Congress family.

Together we will stand up for every Goan, fight divisive forces and work towards ushering in a NEW DAWN for Goa. (1/3)

— Mamata Banerjee (@MamataOfficial) September 29, 2021

However, former Goa legislator Mamledar resigned from the TMC on December 24, nearly three months after his joining, accusing it of being communal and trying to create a divide between Hindus and Christians for votes ahead of the state polls.

In a big jolt for the BJP ahead of the 2022 assembly polls, Uttarakhand transport minister Yashpal Arya quit the saffron party in October and joined the Congress along with his MLA son Sanjeev.

Letpao Haokip, a leader of the BJP’s ally in Manipur National People’s Party and cabinet minister in the state government, joined the BJP on December 29.

Only those who stick to their ideology make a mark in politics, observed Congress general secretary Ajay Maken during a three-day training camp of the Rajasthan Congress this week. While not taking any names, Maken said, “In politics, only those people find their place who stay with their ideology throughout their life. Those who change their ideology for power and out of greed are neither leaders nor a fit human being.”

However, this seems to be his individual opinion as the Congress has from time to time welcomed many leaders who left their parties to be a part of the grand old party.

But legislators changing camps is a fact of politics. Asked about it, Kumar of CSDS said it is not a black or white situation with its own merits and demerits. “Suppose there is a rule that a person cannot leave the party, he will become a prisoner of the party. Whether they agree or not with the policies of the party, they have to remain a part of it, which is not right,” he said.

“On the other hand, I also do not support the liberty to an elected representative to switch parties whenever they want. In my opinion, once a leader is elected by the people, he or she should remain in the party till the next election,” Kumar said, terming the shifting of parties a betrayal of the people’s mandate as voiced at the most recent prior election. He further advocated the need to improve regulations in this regard.

India has an anti-defection law that punishes individual MPs/MLAs for leaving one party for another. However, the law, passed in 1985 through the 52nd Amendment to the Constitution, allows a group of MP/MLAs to join another political party without inviting the penalty for defection. The Tenth Schedule of the Constitution also does not penalise political parties for encouraging or accepting defecting legislators.

Even though the law was formulated with the stated intent of bringing stability to the system, many such events in the Indian political scene underline the need for a review in order to tighten loopholes.

The cover image was made by Suneesh Kalarickal.

All other images by Shutterstock and Pixabay.

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