Senior lawyer and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal on Wednesday criticised lawmakers who switch political parties after being elected on a party symbol, describing such actions as “immoral, illegal and unconstitutional”.
In a post on X, Sibal said Members of Parliament and Legislative Assemblies are elected on the basis of a party’s symbol and mandate, and therefore cannot subsequently “walk over” to another party with a different symbol.
“If the party symbol sends you to Parliament, how can you walk over join another party with another symbol? You did not get elected on that symbol! No principle of constitutional law can permit this,” Sibal said.
Calling such defections “immoral, illegal and unconstitutional”, he said such cases warrant judicial scrutiny.
“Immoral Illegal Unconstitutional. Over to Court,” Sibal said.
Recently, Sibal had slammed a group of rebel MPs from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) who announced their merger with the Nationalist Citizens Party of India. Terming the development a “joke”, he said, “Indian democracy has become the theatre of the absurd.”
Sibal had argued that rebels of the TMC legislative party cannot independently merge with another political party and that such a merger can take place only if the TMC itself decides to merge.
