ADR Counts 111 Legislators Who Switched Parties Since 2022 as Supreme Court Upholds Telangana MLA’s Disqualification

The news

New Delhi. A total of 111 sitting MPs and MLAs changed their political parties after being elected to the current Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and State Assemblies since 2022, according to an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch reported by The Hindu. Of them, 26 were Lok Sabha members, seven Rajya Sabha members and 78 members of Legislative Assemblies; the analysis covers elections and bye-elections held between 2022 and 2026. Nagaland recorded the highest number of switches, 32 (29%), followed by West Bengal with 20 (18%). Representatives originally elected from the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) accounted for 25 switches (23%), the Trinamool Congress for 20 (18%), the Congress for 19 (17%) and the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) for nine (8%); the first three together made up 64 (58%). The Naga People’s Front received the most lawmakers, 32, followed by the BJP with 29 and the Nationalist Citizens Party of India with 20. The report attributes the recent fall of governments in some States to defections. Separately, on Thursday, September 24, the Supreme Court declined to interfere with the Telangana High Court’s decision disqualifying Khairatabad MLA Danam Nagender under the anti-defection law, the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which strips a legislator of his seat for switching parties. This is the new step after this magazine’s card of 19 September on the High Court ruling. Mr. Nagender won Khairatabad for the BRS in 2018 and 2023, joined the Congress in March 2024 and unsuccessfully contested the Lok Sabha poll from Secunderabad while still an MLA, losing to the BJP’s G. Kishan Reddy, The Indian Express reports. The Assembly Speaker had dismissed petitions by the BRS and the BJP seeking his disqualification; on September 18 the High Court set that decision aside. Before a Bench of Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana, senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi argued that the Tenth Schedule allows a member’s act of giving up party membership to be condoned. The Bench held that the condonation provision applies only when a member votes against the party whip, not when he gives up membership of his party. Justice Bagchi asked whether counsel meant “ghar wapsi”. The syllabus link is GS2: parliament and State legislatures, and the conduct of their members.

Static syllabus linkage

1. The Tenth Schedule has two separate grounds of disqualification, and only one can be condoned. Paragraph 2(1)(a) disqualifies a member of a House who has voluntarily given up membership of the political party that set him up. Paragraph 2(1)(b) disqualifies a member who votes or abstains contrary to a direction of his party without its prior permission, unless the party condones the act within 15 days. Paragraph 2(2) disqualifies an independent member who joins a party after election, and paragraph 2(3) disqualifies a nominated member who joins a party more than six months after taking his seat. Today’s ruling confirms that the 15-day condonation in paragraph 2(1)(b) has no application to paragraph 2(1)(a).
2. The 91st Amendment closed the ‘split’ door but left the ‘merger’ door open. The Tenth Schedule was inserted by the Constitution (Fifty-second Amendment) Act, 1985. Its original paragraph 3 protected a ‘split’ by one-third of a legislature party, which encouraged staged defections; the Constitution (Ninety-first Amendment) Act, 2003 deleted it. Paragraph 4 still protects a merger of the original political party with another party if at least two-thirds of the members of the legislature party agree to it. The same amendment capped the Council of Ministers at 15% of the strength of the Lok Sabha or Assembly (Articles 75(1A) and 164(1A)), barred a disqualified defector from becoming a minister until re-elected (Articles 75(1B) and 164(1B)), and inserted Article 361B barring him from any remunerative political post.
3. The Speaker decides, but as a tribunal subject to judicial review. Paragraph 6 makes the Speaker or Chairman the deciding authority on disqualification. In Kihoto Hollohan v. Zachillhu (1992) the Supreme Court upheld the Schedule but held that the presiding officer acts as a tribunal, so his decision is open to judicial review on limited grounds such as mala fides, perversity and violation of natural justice; paragraph 7, which barred courts altogether, was struck down. In Ravi S. Naik v. Union of India (1994) the Court held that ‘voluntarily giving up membership’ need not be a formal resignation and can be inferred from a member’s conduct. Contesting an election on another party’s ticket, as in Mr. Nagender’s case, is the clearest example of such conduct.
4. Delay by Speakers has forced the Supreme Court to set timelines. In Keisham Meghachandra Singh v. Speaker, Manipur Legislative Assembly (2020), the Supreme Court held that disqualification petitions should ordinarily be decided within three months and suggested that Parliament consider an independent tribunal in place of the Speaker. In Subhash Desai v. Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra (2023), a Constitution Bench held that the whip is appointed by the political party, not the legislature party, and that the Speaker must decide petitions within a reasonable time. In July 2025 the Court directed the Telangana Speaker to decide within three months the petitions against BRS MLAs who had moved to the Congress, the dispute that led to today’s ruling.

Why UPSC loves this

1. The anti-defection law is a standing Mains question. GS2 covers Parliament and State legislatures, their functioning and conduct of business. Mains has asked whether the anti-defection law has achieved its purpose and whether the Speaker should continue to decide disqualification. Today’s ADR data and the Nagender ruling give fresh evidence for both sides of that question.
2. Prelims loves the numbers inside the Tenth Schedule. The two-thirds merger threshold, the 15-day condonation window, the six-month rule for nominated members and the deletion of the split provision by the 91st Amendment are frequently tested as statements. The 15% ministerial cap from the same amendment is another favourite.
3. Case law now carries much of the answer. Answers that cite Kihoto Hollohan, Keisham Meghachandra Singh and Subhash Desai score better than general answers, because the working rules on delay, whips and judicial review now come from judgments rather than the text of the Schedule.

Analysis

1. Accepting the ‘ghar wapsi’ argument would have hollowed out paragraph 2(1)(a). If a party could forgive a member who left it, any defector could return when his new party lost, and the old party could welcome him back to avoid a bye-election. Disqualification would then depend on a political bargain, not on the member’s conduct, which is the opposite of what the Schedule intends. The condonation window in paragraph 2(1)(b) exists because a vote against the whip can be a single lapse, while giving up membership is a change of allegiance. The Bench’s distinction therefore follows the structure of the text. The ruling is short, but it removes a defence that would otherwise be tried in every pending case.
2. The law fails through delay rather than through its words. Mr. Nagender contested a Lok Sabha election on a rival party’s ticket in 2024, the clearest possible evidence of giving up membership, yet he kept his seat until a court intervened in September 2026. The Speaker, who belongs to the ruling side, had dismissed the petitions. This is why the ADR figure of 111 switches coexists with a law that is textually strict: a Speaker who does not decide, or decides for his own party, turns disqualification into a formality. The counter-view is that courts deciding disqualification themselves intrude on the legislature’s domain, which is why Kihoto Hollohan kept review narrow; but the alternative, an unreviewed partisan Speaker, has proved worse.
3. Not all 111 switches are illegal, and the Nagaland numbers suggest a merger, not a stampede. ADR counts every change of party after election, which includes lawful mergers under paragraph 4 and members who resigned and sought re-election. In Nagaland, 25 switches came from the NDPP while the Naga People’s Front received 32 lawmakers; a movement of that shape looks like a bloc transfer that the merger exception is designed to protect. The same count therefore mixes defections the Constitution forbids with realignments it allows. The real lesson is that the merger clause, not individual defection, is now the main route by which parties change hands, and paragraph 4 lets a two-thirds group of legislators decide for the whole party.
4. The anti-defection law silences individual legislators while failing to stop mass movements. Because a whip can be issued on almost any vote, a legislator cannot vote on conscience even on minor Bills, which weakens deliberation in the House. At the same time, organised groups large enough to use the merger clause switch with impunity. The Dinesh Goswami Committee on Electoral Reforms (1990) recommended limiting disqualification to voluntarily giving up membership and to votes on confidence and money matters, and entrusting decisions to the President or Governor on the Election Commission’s advice. That reform would free ordinary debate while tightening the rules on real defection. The counter-view is that narrowing the whip would make governments with thin majorities more unstable.
5. The voter pays for every switch. A defection forces a bye-election at public cost or, worse, leaves a seat held for years by a member who no longer represents the party the voters chose. The report’s observation that State governments have fallen through defections means that a mandate can be reversed without an election. Articles 75(1B) and 164(1B) stop a disqualified defector from becoming a minister until re-elected, but they bite only after a Speaker actually disqualifies him. A time-bound decision by a neutral authority is the reform that most directly protects the vote.

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