Perhaps the INC needs to add to its manifesto:
We shall, within 100 days of being elected to the treasury benches, bring in an amendment to the anti-defection law where any elected representative must resign from all currently-held public offices, vacate all government-issued premises, and refund all salaries & perks received from the date of the last election of each of the public offices they hold before changing political affiliation, resigning from the political party on whose ticket they were elected, or joining any political party other than the one they represented at the time of the election that brought them to that/those office/s.
If, as an elected representative of the people, I wish to switch loyalties, I must be made to (a) forfeit all that I have enjoyed ex-officio, and (b) prove my mandate anew under the new symbol and new manifesto again. Anything else is undemocratic and unethical.
Having a change of conscience shouldn’t be a crime. But betraying people’s mandate must be one. And if you are so driven by a rival ideology as to want to abandon the very political party that won you your seat at the table of power, then you should be fine relinquishing all the benefits you have received by dint of being elected and must be made to go back to the same people who elected you to explain to them your change of heart and attempt winning their mandate once again under the new symbol & manifesto. That is the fairest way of doing things.
And as of this day, only the INC can see the need for such a fair law.
There remain only two questions:
1. does the INC have it in them to put it into writing; and
2. will it, once it comes to power (which it will someday, hopefully not too far into the future), remain steadfast to this principle, given that this is precisely the kind of law any party in power would not want?
Only time will tell.
