Chadha's anti-defection bill that could've stopped his AAP-BJP switch, wanted law against 'nefarious floor-crossing'

IN aug 2022, Raghav Chadha stood in the Rajya Sabha as a freshly elected AAP MP from Punjab and introduced a buck private fellow member note calling for stricter anti-defection laws. He spoke against what he called “nefarious floor crossing by legislators in total disregard of the democratic wishes of the electorate who returned them”.He said he wanted to see "the prevention of horse-trading" of elected lawmakers, and argued that tightening the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution would erase a “blot on our democracy”.“The law that was made to end the politics of defection, currently facilitates defection,” he said in the Rajya Sabha then.Less than four years later, on April 25, 2026, Chadha led six Aam Aadmi Party Rajya Sabha MPs in switching to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).The defection was made possible by the very provision he had once sought to amend — the two-thirds threshold under the existing anti-defection law.Also read | AAP's ‘marriage’ jibe after Chadha's ‘toxic’ charge: ‘Because this party made you MP’Two-third to three-fourth: What Chadha wantedUnder the current law, a group of lawmakers wishing to switch parties must number at least two-thirds of their party's strength in the House to avoid disqualification.In the case of AAP's 10 Rajya Sabha MPs, the threshold was seven. Chadha, along with six others met that number exactly.In his 2022 bill, Chadha had proposed raising that threshold from two-thirds to three-fourths.Under that proposed amendment, the minimum number required to defect without disqualification would have been eight — one more than the seven who actually switched.His bill also proposed barring defecting lawmakers from contesting elections for six years. The bill was never passed. Also read | ‘Kothi No 50’ barbs fly after Raghav Chadha's BJP shift, Punjab AAP MPs flag powers he heldCited switch-to-BJP dataChadha had also proposed that defecting lawmakers be required to appear before the House Chair within a week of withdrawing support from their original party.He cited data from the transparency organisation Association of Democratic Reforms showing that over 100 MPs and MLAs had joined the BJP between 2016 and 2021, including Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, whose switch brought down the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh. AAP wants ‘recall’, Chadha wanted law for that tooThe AAP has said it will seek disqualification of the seven MPs, but the Rajya Sabha chairman has already accepted the “merger” request.The party's remaining legal option would be to pursue the matter in court.Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann has separately sought an appointment with the President of India to demand the "recall" of the six defectors elected from the state.The demand draws on a mechanism that Chadha himself pitched in Parliament in February 2026 — just two months before his defection.In that pitch, Chadha had argued that voters should have the right to remove non-performing elected representatives before the end of their term. "Five years is too long. There is no profession where you underperform for five years with zero consequences," he'd said.For Rajya Sabha MPs, the term is in fact six years, longer than that for Lok Sabha MPs and MLAs.However, former advocate general of Punjab, Ashok Aggarwal, has said that no such provision exists in the Constitution. "Recall is not a provision available in the Constitution under any schedule at all. There is no question of recall," he said.The AAP, which was founded in 2012, has now been reduced to six MPs in Parliament after the defection — three MPs in each House.The party faces Punjab assembly elections next year, where the Bhagwant Mann government will seek a second term. Six of the MPs who switched sides are from Punjab, and the party now has a lone RS MP from the state.Chadha, who was AAP's national spokesperson, is now reported to be in line for a union ministerial position with the BJP, according to some reports. As for his bills for a higher threshold for defection, and the Right to Recall, those did not proceed to a vote. Private members' bills rarely do.