Mumbai Message For Politics

CM may have resigned. But the entire political class tried to subvert laws and legislative institutions

- R Jagannathan

India’s murky politics of unprincipled alliances and personal backstabbing has got murkier, as we see in Maharashtra. The governor’s directive to conduct the floor test today had reached the Supreme Court, which refused to place any stay order.

Later on Wednesday, Uddhav Thackeray resigned rendering all previous calculations irrelevant. His resignation may have spared all of us another political and legislative spectacle. Some may think that with a sitting CM voluntarily leaving office a measure of propriety has been restored. Uddhav, it will be argued, did the right thing instead of prolonging a lost battle. However, in Indian politics things are rarely, if ever, so simple. From the murkiness of Maharashtra politics three things are now crystal clear.

One, the anti-defection law, which requires a two-thirds break within a party to formalise a split, is unable to prevent defections and horse-trading even if this number is within reach because the affected party can do other things to prevent it.

Two, when parties are short of just a handful of MLAs – as was the case in Karnataka after the 2018 elections – defectors can merely resign, get themselves re-elected, and get around the anti-defection law.