Gandhi Bhavan was set afire by Congress’ own workers; KCR was gheraoed by his own party members from Khammam; the BJP office in Hyderabad was vandalized by their own cadre from Malakpet constituency and the TDP workers in Adilabad took out processions against their own party president.   All these workers were angry at the way their parties formed alliances, shared seats and distributed tickets for the impending state and parliament elections.

dir="ltr">A glaring feature of this election is the large number of politicians switching party loyalties before the polls. In states where Assembly elections are held simultaneously, these pre-election defections are even more glaring. The ninety-seventh amendment to the Constitution, which became law only a few weeks ago, disqualifies all elected legislators who violate party whip irrespective of the size of the defecting faction. The earlier provision recognizing a ‘split’ if a third of the members defect has been repealed. But no law can prevent the pre-election defection.