Rule of Law in India has become a casualty because of BJP coming to power in 2014 and again winning the general elections in 2019. The BJP is in mad pursuit of power where in Assembly elections it has lost to the Congress. It wants to make politics in India Opposition-free. It has no care for popular mandate as expressed through elections conducted by the Election Commission of India.
By employing its money power it caught hold of 15 MLAs (3 from JDS and 12 from Congress) in Karnataka in 2019 and put these MLAs in star hotels of Maharastra that was then being governed by the BJP. These MLAs after being heavily bribed chose to give up their membership of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. This brazen strategy adopted by the BJP was to bring down the total strength of Karnataka Legislative Assembly from 224 to 209. By this dirty way, it pulled down the JDS-Congress coalition Government paving way for the BJP to come to power in Karnataka because of the complicity of the Supreme Court and Election Commission. Rule of law and rule of morality were thrown to the winds.
Now after sabotaging the electoral mandate in Karnataka in July, 2019, the BJP applied the same strategy in the case of MP and dislodged the Kamal Nath led Congress Government and formed its own Government in March.
Currently, the Union Government led by PM Modi is employing all means to break the Congress Government in Rajsthan by having an undisclosed self-serving understanding with the Sachin Pilot faction of Congress MLAs who are now being put in a luxury hotel in BJP-ruled State of Haryana.
If all opposition parties stand together under the leadership of Congress and if there is no division of votes among them (Congress, TMC, CPM , CPI, RJD, JMM, TRS, DMK, Shiv Sena etc.), then the BJP led NDA would not win any election hereafter. If there would be disunity among these parties then the BJP would win all elections as it has won the 2019 election to the Lok Sabha. It got 37.5% of popular vote. Had there been Nepal’s Mixed PR System of Election in India, it would have got only 200 seats in Lok Shaba. But it captured 303 seats in Lok Sabha, an excess of 103 seats, due to our defective electoral system called FPTP (First-Past-the-Post).
(The writer is general secretary, Freethought Party of India)