Over 170 Congress MLAs Joined Other Parties To Contest Polls Between 2016-20: Report

During the elections held between 2016-20, at least 170 MLAs of Congress parties left and joined another party to contest polls, according to a report.

Only 18 BJP legislators switched to another party to contest the polls during the same period, poll rights group Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) report said.

The report said that during this period, out of 405 re-contesting elections, 182 joined BJP, 38 joined congress and 25 of them joined Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS), reported NDTV.

During the Lok Sabha election of 2019, five Lok Sabha MPs left Bhartiya Janata Party to contest the election while Congress saw the separation of seven Rajya Sabha MPs.

The report said, "It is to be noted that due to the decamping of their MLAs, governments of Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Goa, Arunachal Pradesh and Karnataka State Assemblies fell down. 10 of the 16 re-contesting Rajya Sabha MPs, who switched political parties joined the BJP and five of the 12 Lok Sabha MPs who changed parties joined the Congress during the 2019 parliamentary polls."

Self-sworn affidavits of 433 MPs and MLAs who, in the last five years, switched parties to re-contest the election, have been analysed by the ADR and National Election Watch to publish the record.

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