Association for Democratic Reforms says 26 Lok Sabha MPs, seven Rajya Sabha MPs and 78 MLAs have defected to other parties between 2022 and 2026

The Naga People’s Front (NPF), the BJP and the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) top the list of parties to have welcomed defectors into their fold in the last four years, a report by the Association for Democratic Reforms has revealed.

The report has compiled that 26 Lok Sabha MPs, seven Rajya Sabha MPs and 78 MLAs have defected to other parties between 2022 and 2026.

The NPF, the BJP and the NCPI gained at the cost of the National Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), the all-India Trinamool Congress and the Congress.

The NDPP, Trinamool and Congress together lost about 58 per cent of their elected representatives to the NPF, BJP and NCPI.

The NPF, currently ruling in Nagaland along with the BJP and a coalition partner in BJP-ruled Manipur, bagged the most number of MLAs across the country after the NDPP merged with it in October last year.

In May this year, the Election Commission recognised the merger. Before the merger the NPF had only two legislators in the 60-member Nagaland Assembly, while the NDPP had 25.

Seven MLAs belonging to the late Ajit Pawar’s NCP had joined the NDPP in May 2025. After the merger of the NDPP with the NPF, Nagaland was left without any Opposition.

The BJP has got seven MPs – all seven Rajya Sabha members from AAP who defected in April this year – and 22 MLAs in these four years.

The defection of 20 of the 27 MPs elected on the erstwhile Trinamool Congress ticket and symbol turned the little-known NCPI into the fifth largest party in Lok Sabha after the BJP, Congress, SP and DMK.

The status of the turncoat MPs is under question as an appeal for disqualification is pending before the Lok Sabha secretariat and also in the Supreme Court.

The ADR report does not mention the three Trinamool Rajya Sabha members – Sushmita Dev, Sukhendu Shekhar Roy and Prakash Chik Baraik – who resigned and were re-elected on BJP tickets in July this year after the change of guard in Bengal.

The ADR has suggested a number of steps to put an end to the “politics of convenience and self-gain.”

It has recommended an amendment to the 10th Schedule of the Constitution empowering the President and the governor to decide on the disqualification of MPs and MLAs respectively.

It has also recommended that defectors should be barred from holding public office until the next elections or for the remaining term of the legislature.

The ADR has demanded the decision on disqualification should be settled within six months since the petition for disqualification is moved.

The ADR suggested that a defector legislator or parliamentarian, once disqualified, should not be nominated to the Rajya Sabha, the legislative council or any other government post.

It should be mandatory for the MPs and MLAs to file an annual report on the work accomplished in the previous year and their plans for the next, which should be available on the websites of the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha or the Election Commission, the ADR has suggested.