Sting in tale, but it’s more of a number game

The Jharkhand Assembly Speaker is once again under the scanner. This time, Congress MLA...

The Jharkhand Assembly Speaker is once again under the scanner. This time, Congress MLA and Speaker Alamgir Alam has raised a political storm by serving notices to three BJP legislators asking them to explain why their membership should not be terminated. The trio had been caught on tape accepting bribes in a “sting operation” last year.

Alam says the law is on his side and he has given the MLAs ample time to defend themselves. “When 10 MPs could be disqualified for a similar offence, why should these three MLAs escape punishment?” asks a senior Congress worker.

However, the number game in the Assembly lends a new angle to the issue. Chief Minister Madhu Koda, who was chosen for the top post by the UPA last year, has the support of just 42 legislators in the 81-member House. His government will be in deep crisis even if two legislators decide to switch sides.

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In this context, the Speaker’s move is being widely perceived as an attempt to make life easy for Koda and the UPA government.

Incidentally, UPA legislators Stephen Marandi, Enos Ekka and Bhanu Pratap Sahi too are facing disqualification after their parties slapped defection charges against them. Alam’s predecessor Inder Singh Namdhari had even issued them notices in this regard.

On Thursday, Alam too issued a new notice to Sahi. But, on Friday, Sahi said he was yet to receive the notice. Asked for his comment, Koda was evasive: “What can I say. The Speaker is just doing his work.”

But neither Koda nor Alam can be blamed for their actions. As per the Anti-Defection Law, the only way an MLA can leave the party on whose ticket he was elected is to resign. A split or merger in the party is permitted only when one-third of the total number of its legislators express their collective desire to cross over.

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But the law sounds hollow in the case of Ekka and Sahi. The “one-third” criterion makes no sense in the state where small parties abound. Ekka was the sole MLA of his Jharkhand Party while Forward Bloc had just one other MLA than Sahi. Moreover, the law does not define the “discretion” of the Speaker to dispose of such cases within a time-frame.

Significantly, the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution’s recommendations incorporated in the Anti-Defection Law and Parliamentary Privileges (Second Edition) had suggested that the vote cast by a defector to topple a government should be treated as invalid. The Commission had also recommended that the power to decide on questions of disqualification on grounds of defection should vest in the Election Commission instead of the chairman or Speaker of the House concerned.