Defection law gets a three-month deadline, apparently
Former BRS MP B Vinod Kumar has urged the BJP-led Centre to amend the Tenth Schedule. ADR’s data explains why the demand is difficult to dismiss, even if one Telangana number still needs checking.
The Tenth Schedule contains no general three-month deadline for deciding disqualification petitions.
The BJP-led Centre has been asked to stop treating defections as a file-management exercise. Former BRS MP B Vinod Kumar, according to a September 25 report, wants the Tenth Schedule amended to impose a mandatory three-month deadline on disqualification petitions and automatically disqualify legislators who switch parties. He also urged the Union government to bring a Bill in the winter session. (telanganatoday.com)
The timing is not mysterious. The Association for Democratic Reforms says 111 sitting MPs and MLAs changed parties after being elected between 2022 and 2026: 26 Lok Sabha MPs, seven Rajya Sabha MPs and 78 MLAs. ADR cautions that its count is not an official exhaustive register and includes party mergers, resignations followed by bye-elections and disqualifications followed by bye-elections, not only ordinary defections. (adrindia.org)
Congress’s 2024 manifesto already promised automatic disqualification for legislators who leave the party on whose ticket they were elected. It did not promise the three-month deadline, and Congress has not publicly answered this specific demand in the material reviewed. The Tenth Schedule sets out disqualification grounds but contains no general three-month deadline. The BJP-led Centre has likewise not established that a Bill is coming. (manifesto.inc.in) (legislative.gov.in)
The nine Telangana representatives in ADR’s dataset cannot yet be safely described as nine BRS MLAs who joined Congress. That table still needs checking. The law has a schedule; the politicians have discovered flexibility.