Venkaiah Naidu: ‘Party hopping a disturbing trend … first you praise new leader, then you abuse previous leader’

Criticising leaders who quit their parties to join and fight elections for others, former Vice President of India M Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday said it was a “disturbing trend” and called for the strengthening of the anti-defection law. Naidu also took strong exception to the parties announcing freebies before elections and said that “only education and health should be free”.

“In the morning you are in one party, in the afternoon you join the other one. The next day you get a ticket to fight the election. First, you are praising your new leader and then you abuse your former leader. This is a new trend. You were adoring someone today, you joined the other party and abused the first leader. It is a disturbing trend,” Naidu said at a function in New Delhi, held a day after he received the Padma Vibhushan award from President Droupadi Murmu. He said he was not referring to any particular party but “talking in general”.

The former Vice President said that although changing parties was permitted in a democracy, the leader should resign from all posts they received in the party before jumping ship. “I can understand about accusations but using abusive language should be avoided,” Naidu said. The former Vice President pointed out that he had stuck to one party — the BJP — in his political career of five decades.

The former vice president’s remarks come at a time when the BJP has inducted a battery of leaders from various parties, mainly the Congress, and fielded them in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. More than a quarter of the BJP’s 433 candidates have been inducted from other parties. Though fewer, there have been a handful of BJP MPs who have moved the other way and joined the Congress — such as Ajay Nishad in Bihar’s