The Bharatiya Janata Party was the party of choice for 44.9% of the legislators who defected to other political parties and re-contested el...
The Bharatiya Janata Party was the party of choice for 44.9% of the legislators who defected to other political parties and re-contested elections between 2016-’20, showed a report released by the Association for Democratic Reforms on Thursday. In contrast, the Congress accounted for the most MLAs who quit to join another party.
The Association for Democratic Reforms and the National Election Watch analysed the election affidavits of 443 MLAs and MPs who switched parties and re-contested polls in the last five years. It noted that the recent fall of governments in Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Goa, Arunachal Pradesh and Karnataka were all due to defections of MLAs.
The BJP was the biggest gainer, with 182 (44.9%) of the 405 re-contesting MLAs joining the saffron camp between 2016 and 2020. The Congress came at a distant second, with 38, or 9.4% new joinees. At the third position was the Telangana Rashtra Samithi party, which welcomed 25 new legislators on board during this period, the report said.
Out of the 405 MLAs across the states who quit and switched parties, 42%, or 170, were from the Congress, the report found, while only 4.4%, that is, 18 BJP legislators disowned their allegiance to the party...