EDITORIAL

Straws in the wind: On defections from BJP ahead of U.P.

polls
JANUARY 12, 2022 00:02 IST
UPDATED:
JANUARY 12, 2022 00:35 IST

The spurt of defections away from the party in Uttar Pradesh should worry the BJP

T he stereotypical image of politicians in India in popular culture is mostly

unflattering, but it is also somewhat unfair. Politics as a vocation is not an easy one and no
one receives more scrutiny than legislators and politicians in public life and despite there
being several things to improve upon, electoral democracy in India allows for a fair amount
of accountability by empowering the voter to evaluate those contesting to represent them.
Yet, if there is one act that reminds citizens of the tendencies of politicians, it is that of
switching sides on the eve of fresh elections in a State. No State is spared of this act, and
hardly any party escapes defections. In a world where principles and ideologies determine
party affiliation, switching parties at the last minute would be a rare anomaly for there
would have been ample time for disgruntled partymen to rethink the bandwagon they had
hitched themselves to. But in the real world, elections bring in hard calculations —
politicians who sense a whiff of change in the mood of the electorate are ready to take the
risk to switch. These occurrences are more pronounced when parties select their legislators
on considerations such as caste/community identity — but they are no longer rare events
even in States where the polity features a clear ideological divide, for instance, Kerala. But
there are also occurrences — dime a dozen — when the electorate does not punish political
opportunists and considerations other than legislative ability alone determine the
electoral fortunes of contestants.

In the case of Goa, a State with a small Assembly and which has a history of party-hopping,
the spurt of defections of late should not come as a surprise. But the fact that electoral
contestation in an already fractious polity with a high number of competitive political
parties has now increased with the Trinamool Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party in the
fray has exacerbated matters by widening the choices for the political opportunist In Uttar
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Printable version | Jan 12, 2022 5:36:16 AM |

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on-defections-from-bjp-ahead-of-up-assembly-elections-2022/article38242978.ece
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