SC's suggestion that Parliament should strengthen the anti-defection law is off the mark. We need to abolish it. If MLAs are free to change parties, then parties would be more careful while choosing candidates. Counter-intuitive, but it's by missing this that we got to the mess.
The Westminster system allows this, as the 'judgment' of elected reps also matters, not merely their numbers. Our system - which we like to think is based on UK's - explicitly excludes judgment & counts only their numbers. At which point there's no representation, only presence.
The letter of the law is not a good guide in cases about the conduct of lawmakers, because those letters contain a conflict of interest in those enacting them. If the court had begun with this clarity, a lot of self-evident truths would not need to be excused by blaming the law.
For all the Kamala ops we see around the country, the original sin was committed by the Congress Party and Rajiv Gandhi, who brought in this law - an absolute culling of the legislatures' independence. That's the reason our 'best' lawmakers are known for their speeches, not laws.
In the current scenario, those who value their own judgment have no incentive to contest elections unless they are part of the party leadership. This means only about 5% of the MLAs will ever be people with an agenda for lawmaking. The rest are just making up the numbers.
The only exception to this is if a political party agrees not to have a Whip in the legislature except for confidence motions. I have tried repeatedly to push @AamAadmiParty to this higher standard. New politics must abandon the methods of the old.
