New Delhi, August 19
Expelled BJP leader Jaswant Singh will be able to retain his Lok Sabha membership despite the marching orders handed out to him by the saffron party.
Instead of occupying the front row in the Lok Sabha as a member of the main opposition party, the former External Affairs Minister will now be relegated to the back benches as a detached member. It was only recently that the BJP had managed to mollify a sulking Jaswant Singh by accommodating him on the front benches and nominating him for the chairmanship of the prestigious Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
According to the anti-defection law, an MP can be disqualified if he defies his party whip or if he leaves the party voluntarily.
The provisions of the Act state that an MP attracts disqualification “if he has voluntarily given up his membership of such political party; or if he votes or abstains from voting in such House contrary to any direction issued by the political party to which he belongs”.
The Act further elaborates: “An elected member of a House who has been elected as such otherwise than as a candidate set up by any political party shall be disqualified for being a member of the House, if he joins any political party after such election”.
However, there is no such stipulation in case of MPs who are expelled from the membership of the party on whose symbol they were elected to Parliament.
It is precisely for this reason that political parties refrain from taking such an extreme step in dealing with members who step out of line. The general practice is to suspend such a member so that the MP concerned is unable to join another political outfit and is instead forced to vote with the party whenever it issues a three-line whip as defiance of such a diktat would automatically invite disqualification.
The Congress took this route in case of its senior leader Natwar Singh, who fell out of favour following his involvement in the food-for-oil scam. Natwar Singh was placed under suspension, but not expelled as that would have enabled him to retain his membership of the Rajya Sabha and join another political party.
Similar was the case with former Congress Lok Sabha MP Kuldeep Bishnoi. The Congress kept him under suspension for months even though he launched a personalised campaign against party president Sonia Gandhi and even floated his own party.
