What is 'defection'?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → An elected representative leaving the party on whose ticket she/he has been elected
Option (1) When an individual migrates to another country — Incorrect.
Option (2) Parties with different ideologies — Incorrect. Parties with different ideologies coming together describes the SVD coalitions of 1967, whose partners were ideologically incongruent.
Option (3) A catchy phrase — Incorrect. The catchy phrase was ‘Aya Ram, Gaya Ram’, which arose from the frequent defections of this period.
Option (4) An elected representative leaving the party on whose ticket she/he has been elected — Correct. Defection means an elected representative leaves the party on whose symbol he/she was elected and joins another party. After the 1967 elections, breakaway Congress legislators helped install non-Congress governments in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
NCERT (2026-27): “Defection … Another important feature of the politics after the 1967 election was the role played by defections in the making and unmaking of governments in the States. Defection means an elected representative leaves the party on whose symbol he/she was elected and joins another party. After the 1967 general election, the breakaway Congress legislators played an important role in installing non-Congress governments in three States - Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.…” |