Talk:Anti-defection law (India)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Coffeeandcrumbs (talk) 20:09, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that anti-defection law in India limits the size of ministries to 15 per cent of the strength of the legislature?
  • ALT1:... that according to anti-defection law in India an elected member of a legislative house can be disqualified on the grounds of defection?
  • ALT1a: ... that according to anti-defection law in India, an elected member of a legislative house can be disqualified for the remaining term of office?

Created by Santoshdts (talk). Self-nominated at 11:18, 14 April 2020 (UTC).

• Santoshdts, thank you for creating the article. Before I go on for a more complete review, please do some minor copyediting of the article. There are many locations where an extra space is needed after the citation and before the start of a new sentence.
• Please put "Gehlot, N S. (September 1991)" into the bibliography and then use sfn templates, harvard references, etc so that there is limited repetition of the same citation in the references.
• Please try and make the tone less subjective at certain places such as "There rose a need to this malice of political defections."

DTM (talk) 11:59, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Santoshdts, it seems you commented on the transcluded section of this DYK nom on the articles talk page. Did you mean to comment here? Either way it has been noted. Thank you for making the changes.

Here is the review - Article is new enough, long enough, sourced, neutral, and seems to be free of copyright problems. QPQ not applicable. However you need to do a copyedit of the article. Example - this sentence "whereas the Y B. Chavan committee suggested..." should start with a capital W. Also please do not capitalise words unnecessarily such as in "Autocratic party system". Please also keep a note of consistency - "Committee" in one line and "committee" in another. Also the formatting of the bold text under the header "The Law". I suggest placing it in Wikipedia:WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests.

An issue with the sourcing of the hook. The first hook is sourced to an offline source... Malhotra 2005. Can you confirm you have access to this or is there an online version saying the same thing? Could you try finding some less... technical hooks? In the second hook you have written "can be disqualified"... now this is a common phrase, but what does "disqualified" actually mean for an international audience? Maybe a small note would help? (If better hooks can't be found nevermind.) DTM (talk) 07:47, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

DiplomatTesterMan Thank you for reply. As this is my first DYK nomination, I was unable to find the appropriate page to reply on your views. Hence, ended up replying on the article talk page and diverging from the norm. Thank you for reviewing the article and bring out errors in the page. I shall give it another concentrated review and clear out more errors. About the book you mentioned, I've linked it to Google book it is a live link and yes, I do have a copy the book in ebook format. It's freely available at Digital Library of Parliament. As far is Alt1, I can rephrase it as: "...be disqualified as a member of legislative house for the remaining term of office", Regards. Santoshdts (talk) 08:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for all the changes. New reviewer requested. DTM (talk) 10:37, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello DiplomatTesterMan, hope you are fine. I was just checking in to see if there are any updates on my nomination. As there has been no further development, I wanted to know, did I miss something in the process? Thank you Santoshdts ^[TalkToMe] 19:48, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Santoshdts No you haven't missed anything, sometimes DYKs take this much time. I would have completed it myself, but then I did a little editing to the article, so that is why i asked for a new reviewer. Don't worry, all DYK nominations are eventually attended to. If you go through the nominiations page WP:DYKN you will see that currently the oldest nomination dates to March 7 followed by March 24, April 5 and so on. DTM (talk) 05:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

@DiplomatTesterMan: Thank you for the reply and clearing my doubt. Regards Santoshdts ^[TalkToMe] 11:26, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• Hi, I'm here to do a second review. First I copyedited the article for English grammar, and added some tags where the date or an explanation would be helpful. I struck the first two hooks and added your suggestion as ALT1a, but frankly, this will not be interesting to an international readership. It might be interesting to give a specific example of what you call the "scourge" of defections, such as the Gaya Lal case, and then say that's why they lobbied to pass this law. Yoninah (talk) 15:16, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Yoninah Thank you for reviewing and carrying out necessary copyedit to the page. I'am on the job to clear the ce tags and add relevant information in the article. I was of the view that, by connecting the Act to reasons, may make the hook bit lengthy. Hence, I gave a simple hook. I'll try to rephrase and improve the hook as required. Thank you again. Santoshdts ^[TalkToMe] 16:36, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Yoninah: Hi again, I have cleared all the tags by adding relevant info. I hope my edits in line with your requirements. On selection of hooks, I would like to know your views on merging Alt0 and Alt1a, as these are main points of the Law.

ALT2: ... that according to anti-defection law in India, an elected member of a legislative house can be disqualified for the remaining term of office, and it also limits the size of ministries to 15 per cent of the strength of the legislature?

However, per your suggestion, a new hook would read:

ALT3: ...that in 1967, after fourth Lok Sabha around 500 legislators defected from their political parties. To tackle this malice of defection, anti-defection law in India was enacted in 1985, where an elected member of a legislative house can be disqualified for the remaining term of office?" (Source: Sachdeva, Pradeep (June 1989). "Combating Political Corruption : A Critique of Anti-Defection Legislation". The Indian Journal of Political Science. 50 (2): 158. JSTOR 41855903.)

I would appreciate your inputs on these hooks. Regards. Santoshdts ^[TalkToMe] 18:39, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Santoshdts: thank you for your edits. I made some slight changes to your grammar; on your next nomination, you may wish to apply at WP:GOCE for a copyedit on your work. You will notice that I also changed the page name, since "Anti-defection law" is not a proper name, just a description, and there could be similar laws in other countries.
• Regarding the hooks, ALT2 has the same problem as the previous hooks: it is speaking only to someone who is interested in the subject. ALT3 is too long. Let me make some suggestions:
• ALT3a: ... that before the passage of India's anti-defection law, an estimated 550 out of 3,500 legislators elected in 1967 defected from their parent parties, some crossing the floor more than once?
• ALT4: ... that before the passage of India's anti-defection law, the legislator Gaya Lal was able to change his political allegiance three times in a single day? Yoninah (talk) 20:00, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@Yoninah: Thank you for additional copyediting to rectify my grammar errors. Henceforth, I shall definitely keep in mind your suggestion to request for GOCE assistance for my works in the future.

Regarding hooks, thank you again for suggesting a new alternative. I now realize that I was somehow fixated in highlighting the intentions of the act, rather than making it more interesting. Though both of your suggested hooks are interesting and highlight the need for the act, I would prefer ALT3a as it explains the "scrouge" aptly with numbers and also includes cases like Gaya Lal. Regards Santoshdts ^[TalkToMe] 09:39, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• OK, thanks. Since I proposed the hook, I cannot approve it. Pinging original reviewer @DiplomatTesterMan: to review ALT3a. Yoninah (talk) 10:46, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

ALT3a is interesting and adequately referenced. Noting that the article contains "approximately 3500" as compared to just "3500" in the hook. Approving ALT3a. GTG. DTM (talk) 12:13, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Thank you. I read the source and added "an estimated" to the hook. Yoninah (talk) 12:23, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi @DiplomatTesterMan: per your suggestions, I have made some copyedits to the article and also have paraphrased a sentence. The references are also been sorted using sfn templates. I hope above edits are in line with Wikipedia style. Regards Santoshdts (talk) 15:54, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Rewrite

I have made a start but this article needs a complete rewrite. Even where it is well-phrased, it seems to be poorly considered & I can't believe it adequately reflects sources. To take one example,

Elections in a democratic country are an important aspect where people cast their ballot and determine which political party shall govern the country or a state. In such scenarios, Political defections poses a major threat to the will of the people.

In India perhaps even more than many other major democracies, the politics is personal - there are many generations of dynastic politicians, many elected for caste reasons, many elected for reasons of patronage etc, all of which have little to do with political philosophy/outlook. Also, since the general scheme of Indian democracy derives from notions underpinning that of the UK, people are at least in theory electing a representative for their constituency, not a government for their country, and any such representative can in theory change allegiance without betraying their mandate. I realise the theory and practise can and does diverge but I do suspect the entire background to this legislation is one of tackling corruption, not allegiance/instability per se. This talk page is not the place to discuss democratic theory, of course, but I would be astonished if reliable sources dealing with the 10th Schedule do not. - Sitush (talk) 04:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Suggested reforms in Anti-Defection Law.

A drawback of Anti Defection Law is that the elected representatives of people (like MP, MLA etc.) are not free to vote as per the conscience of their constituencies (if different from the party line). Due to this, some constituencies might suffer due to lack of their representation during voting for passage bills of general/financial nature.

Therefore, it is suggested that the provisions of this law should be limited to the issues which threaten the stability of the administration like Election of Prime Minister/Chief Minister, Confidence motion, No confidence motion Impeachment etc.

On all other bills of general/financial nature, legislatives should be allowed to vote as per the conscience of their constituencies in order to ensure democratic representation of all the constituencies in passing of such bills.

Any contrary views, if there, are welcome. Riteshmmec (talk) 09:27, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Riteshmmec, it seems you've put your own personal suggestions for legal changes into the article. That's entirely not what Wikipedia articles (or indeed talk pages) are for. if some notable political thinkers, academics, writers, etc. make these suggestions, and you can provide reliable sources that they do, that would belong in the article. But your own personal opinions certainly don't. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 14:05, 12 August 2022 (UTC)