Alarmed over the mass exodus of its leaders, including sitting MlAs, towards the Congress party, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Thursday batted for far more stringent provisions of anti-defection law.
“It is the need of the hour to curb mounting tendency of shifting allegiance from one party to another for satiating the lust for power,” he said.
He pitched for strengthening the provisions of anti-defection law that lays
down the process by
which legislators may be disqualified for defecting to another party.
“It is unfortunate that for the sake of power, turncoats are changing their political affiliations with every passing day,” said Badal while speaking on the side-lines of his Sangat Darshan programme at Kartarpur Assembly
segment, from where SAD’s sitting MlA and former Minister Sarwan Singh Phillaur had left the ruling party to join the Congress along with 16 other party leaders and workers.
He said that this is a trend that needs to be checked through a strict anti-defection law, so that
“mockery of democracy”
could be avoided.
The Chief Minister exhorted the people to
teach the defectors a lesson by rejecting them in the
electoral race.
“Displaying politics of opportunism these fugitives not only backstab their mother party but show grave disrespect to the mandate of the people,” he said.
Badal also urged the political parties to think twice before accepting "turncoats" from other parties.
He said that the people of the state were smart enough to exercise their franchise as per principle rather than on the basis of caste or religion.