Anti-defection law or escape route? The Raghav Chadha case explained | Let Me Explain

Seven MPs switch sides.

A party collapses in the Rajya Sabha overnight.

And a law meant to stop defections appears to have enabled one.

So what really happened when Raghav Chadha and six other MPs walked out of the Aam Aadmi Party and aligned with the Bharatiya Janata Party? 

And was the Rajya Sabha Chairman right to accept it?

Let me explain.

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On April 27, 2026, Rajya Sabha Chairman CP Radhakrishnan formally recognised that Raghav Chadha and six other MPs had left AAP and joined the BJP.

AAP’s strength dropped from ten MPs to just three.
The BJP, and the NDA, moved closer to a working majority in the Rajya Sabha.

AAP challenged the move.
Senior leader Sanjay Singh petitioned the Chairman, seeking disqualification of the seven MPs and calling the move unconstitutional.

AAP accused Chadha of betrayal.
He responded by calling the party’s internal culture toxic and its ideals compromised.

That’s the politics.

Was Raghav Chadda’s move legal?

The anti-defection law, in the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, was meant to stop exactly this kind of party-switching.

It lays out when a legislator can be disqualified.

If an MP voluntarily gives up membership of their party, they can lose their seat.

On the face of it, that should apply here.
Seven MPs clearly left their party.

But there’s a loophole.
Or, depending on how you see it, an exception.

Paragraph 4 introduces the merger clause.

It says disqualification does not apply if two-thirds of a party’s legislators agree to merge with another party.

AAP had ten MPs.
Seven left together.

That crosses the two-thirds mark.

The MPs argue this qualifies as a merger.
And that protects them from disqualification.

The Chairman accepted that argument.

Legally, the decision follows the text of the Constitution.
But that’s exactly where the controversy begins.

The key question is this.
Is Raghav Chadha and six MPs leaving AAP to join BJP really a merger?

Senior Supreme Court lawyer and Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal says no.

His argument is simple.
For a merger to be valid, the parties must merge first.
Only then can legislators jump ship.

Here, that didn’t happen.
AAP did not merge with the BJP.
Only a group of its MPs switched sides.

So, in his view, this is not a merger.
It’s a coordinated defection.

Other experts have taken a more cautious view.

Former Lok Sabha Secretary General PDT Achary says the MPs appear to have voluntarily given up party membership, which would normally lead to disqualification.

But he also points out that the merger clause offers them a possible shield.

And he underlines a basic point.
The law was meant to prevent defections, not facilitate them.

This is the law’s central tension.

It once allowed splits.
One-third of legislators could break away without disqualification.

This clause was widely abused.

So in 2003, Parliament removed that provision.

But it kept the merger clause, raising the threshold to two-thirds.

The assumption was simple.
A higher number would make manipulation harder.

But this case suggests otherwise.

If enough legislators act together, even the two-thirds mark can be met.

And once it is, ironically, the law offers full protection.

The result is a paradox.
Individual defections are punished.
Large, organised ones survive.

We’ve seen versions of this before.

2019- in Telangana, Congress MLAs crossed over to BRS after hitting the two-thirds mark.

In Parliament, TDP MPs did the same and went to the BJP.

In all these instances, courts have been reluctant to intervene without clear evidence of illegality.

The Aam Aadmi Party calls this a constitutional fraud.
The MPs insist they acted within the Constitution.

Which brings us back to the House Chairman.

Under the Tenth Schedule, the Chairman decides disqualification.
But the Supreme Court has made it clear these decisions can be reviewed.

So this may not end here.

So was the Chairman wrong?

If you go strictly by the law, probably not.
The numbers add up.

But if you look at the spirit of the law, the answer is far less clear.

And that raises a larger question.

Does the law itself need reform?

Because this case exposes its weaknesses.

The law focuses on numbers, not intent.
It does not ask why legislators defect, only whether they meet a threshold.

It also weakens the link between voters and representatives.
Voters choose candidates based on party affiliation.
But that affiliation can change without their consent.

Imagine you voted for an MP because they stood against something- like communalism- and then they just switched overnight.

This isn’t just about one leader or one party.

It reveals a deeper contradiction.

A law meant to prevent defections may now be enabling them.
A safeguard against instability may be facilitating strategic political shifts.

The real question isn’t just whether the law was followed.

It’s whether the law is working at all.

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