A fresh application has been filed in SC by Congress leader Jaya Thakur to disqualify MLAs from contesting by-polls for up to five years.
Jaya Thakur had made an earlier 2020 writ petition in the Supreme Court seeking to bar MLAs who have been disqualified or have resigned from contesting elections for up to five years. Disqualifications on the grounds of defection are described in the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, commonly referred to as the ‘anti-defection law’.
Congress leader Jaya Thakur filed a fresh petition in the Supreme Court in an effort to curb defections and sought directions from the top court to restrict disqualified MLAs from contesting by-polls to assemblies during the same term in which they were elected.
When Jaya Thakur filed the plea in 2020 and in January 2021, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Union government, and the Election Commission of India (ECI) were seeking their responses in the matter within four weeks. However, the counter-affidavits have not come yet.
In light of the political situation in Maharashtra today, where 34 Shiv Sena MLAs pledged their support for dissident party leader Eknath Shinde, she once again made a fresh effort and made an interlocutory application in the petition, pulling up the ECI and the Union government for their failure to respond in the plea.
Since the matter reached the Supreme Court, there is no chance of the BJP forming an alliance with Eknath Shinde and his 42 MLAs. The BJP is washing their hands off them and these MLAs are going to “be dhobi ka kutta, na ghar ka na ghat ka” neither here nor there and BJP has no further use for them.
