Book

Description

This monograph examines party-hopping as a recurring feature of Indian electoral democracy and situates it within the wider institutional setting in which elections are administered, contested and judged legitimate. It argues that defection cannot be understood merely as the moral failing of individual politicians. It is the observable outcome of a strategic environment composed of electoral incentives, organisational weakness or strength, anti-defection rules, the discretion of presiding officers and governors, the design and conduct of electoral administration, and the narratives through which winners and losers explain results. The book proceeds in seven chapters. Chapter 1 builds a typology and an analytical framework. Chapter 2 analyses the political economy of defection and the Tenth Schedule, with comparative reference to the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, China and the United Arab Emirates. Chapter 3 examines the Election Commission of India, the 2023 appointment statute, state governors and State Election Commissions, including the October 2026 controversy over remarks attributed to the Governor-designate of Odisha. Chapter 4 analyses the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), the Special Summary Revision (SSR), the "vote chori" allegation and the evidentiary standards required to move from a documented deletion to a claim of electoral manipulation. Chapter 5 compares the electoral outcomes of the BJP in West Bengal (2026) and Odisha (2024), the TVK in Tamil Nadu (2026), the AAP in Delhi (2025), the Congress and the TMC and BJD. Chapter 6 studies youth and student mobilisation, the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) protests, media framing and the law of assembly. Chapter 7 develops a reform agenda. The analytical stance is deliberately even-handed. Documented institutional facts, allegations by political actors, judicial findings and the author's interpretation are kept apart throughout, and the same evidentiary standard is applied to every party.