Politics has long been the most speculated subject spurring across the nation as the Uttar Pradesh assembly takes centre stage every time elections are at the nexus of Indian polity.
The legislators themselves seemingly canvas the very stereotypical stature of politicians people frame. The dangling instability and the absence of accountability is the straw that breaks the camel’s back in the popular culture of assembly elections.
With increasing defections every second day, the number of party members gushing out of the party at the last minute hardly explains the principles and ideologies they stood sturdy upon in front of the voters.
Democratic India allows for fair accountability by empowering the people to scrutinize their representatives. However, given the theory that voters have utmost decisive tendencies, the possible tendencies of politicians, on the other hand, is to switch parties or sides at the last second.
The significant discussion since the party defections has been about the elephant in the room-the disgruntled party members who have second thoughts for joining the crusade elsewhere.
The Samajwadi Party (SP) bandwagon Bhartiya Janata Party members hitched themselves to may prove to be yet another survival hunch for them. But in reality, politics is far-flung from survival-It is more about sustainability, which is derived from concrete stance, trust amongst the voters, and a clear ideology.
However, these instances have been more frequent when party members are fettered with legislators ironing out policies and constraints. The parties opt-out legislators considering both caste and communities.
This has not been the case in poll-bound states like Kerala that have succinct ideological differences. The tricky nearing calculations brought about by the assembly elections suggest that the politicians who witness the yawning discrepancies and changes like the electorate make no bones about hopping parties in the face of upcoming polls.
Political opportunists, who face slight afflictions, now tend to switch from one party to another, zeroing down their principle quotient.
The electorate further cowed down to such instances and refrained from implicating the carpetbaggers, which alone proves the electoral fortune of contestants who hop from one party to another.
In a conspicuous anecdote, Goa’s history, a small poll-bound state with minimum assembly seats, has been exemplary with a spurt of party hoppers. The growing political fray between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has increased the competition in an already quarrelsome polity of India.
In Uttar Pradesh, the situation has already gone downhill for the BJP with a spurt in inter-party defections. Moreover, worries are brooding for the ruling party as more BJP members have switched sides to the SP.
The assembly elections have paved the way to the chicken lane, with BJP members hunching around for survival. In contrast, the constant gush of party members into another party at the last minute is now a bundle of nerves for the voters.
Suppose the party hoppers belong to the Other Backward Classes who were promised an advantage over the Mandal parties. In that case, it brings in more confusion amongst the voters to mull upon who they’re choosing as their legislator.
Last year, similar defections in West Bengal had minimal effect on the ruling Trinamool Congress during the assembly elections, which may engender some hope in the ruling BJP.
However, what makes the defections different from last year is the wide gap between the polity of West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh that can spin the fate of elections silently at any juncture. The influence UP assembly elections garners over politics is crucially different from what the TMC has sustained in West Bengal.