Badal bats for stronger anti-defection law

Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today pitched for strengthening the provisions of the anti-defection law that lays down the process by which legislators may be disqualified for defecting to another party.
The Punjab Chief Minister was speaking on the sidelines of a 'Sangat Darshan' program at Kartarpur assembly segment, whose MLA Sarwan Singh Phillaur, a former cabinet minister, had left SAD to join the Congress along with 16 other party leaders and workers.
Badal said a more stringent law was the need of the hour to curb, what he called, a "mounting tendency" of shifting allegiance from one party to another for "satiating the lust for power."

Badal said it was unfortunate that for the sake of power, "turncoats" were changing their political affiliations with every passing day.
He said that this is a trend that needs to be checked through a strict anti-defection law, so that "mockery of democracy" could be avoided.
The Chief Minister exhorted people to teach the defectors a lesson by rejecting them in the electoral race.

"Displaying politics of opportunism these fugitives not only backstab their mother party but show grave disrespect to the mandate of the people," he said.
Badal also urged the political parties to think twice before accepting "turncoats" from other parties.

He said people of the state were smart enough to exercise their franchise as per principle rather than on the basis of caste or religion.