Two freshly elected members of the Bihar Legislative Council are at the centre of a constitutional storm — and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav is demanding their immediate disqualification. The Leader of the Opposition has invoked the anti-defection law, arguing that Bansidhar Brajwasi, elected from the Tirhut Graduate Constituency, and Dr. Rahul Raj, elected from the Saran Teacher Constituency, forfeited their seats the moment they formally joined the Bharatiya Janata Party after winning as independents.

The constitutional provision Tejashwi is citing

The argument rests on a precise clause of the Tenth Schedule of the Indian Constitution — inserted by the 52nd Constitutional Amendment Act of 1985 specifically to curb legislative defection. Paragraph 2(2) of the Schedule is unambiguous: a member elected as an independent who subsequently joins any political party stands disqualified from the House. There is no merger exception, no grace period. The rule is binary.

Tejashwi reinforced the chain of consequences. Article 191(2) bars anyone disqualified under the Tenth Schedule from continuing as a member of a state legislature. And under Paragraph 6(1), the authority to rule on such disqualification belongs to the Chairman of the Bihar Legislative Council — making the ball squarely in the presiding officer's court.

Why Tejashwi says BJP is 'making a mockery of the Constitution'

The RJD leader did not stop at a legal brief. He widened the charge into a pattern of selective enforcement. He pointed to the case of Sahebganj MLA Raju Singh — a BJP legislator — arguing that when a court convicted a ruling-party lawmaker, the Speaker still did not cancel the membership. That, Tejashwi said, exposed a double standard: one law for the opposition, another for the treasury benches.

He further alleged that when opposition legislators were 'auctioned like animals' and moved to the BJP's side, disqualification petitions submitted in writing were simply ignored. 'BJP-RSS sanvidhan aur loktantra ki sabse badi dushman hai' ('BJP-RSS is the biggest enemy of the Constitution and democracy'), he wrote, closing with an unambiguous political verdict.

The presiding-officer problem and what happens next

The Tenth Schedule's Achilles heel has always been the presiding officer's discretion over timing. Across India's state legislatures, Speakers and Chairmen have been repeatedly accused — by parties on both sides — of sitting on disqualification petitions for months or years, effectively keeping defectors in place through inaction. Bihar has lived through several such cycles.

Tejashwi is demanding that the Chairman of the Bihar Legislative Council initiate disqualification proceedings 'immediately, without unnecessary delay.' Whether the Chairman acts swiftly — or whether this petition joins a long queue of unresolved anti-defection cases — will test the credibility of the very amendment Parliament passed four decades ago to make legislators answerable to voters, not party whips.

The Constitution drew a clear line in 1985. Bihar's upper house now has to decide whether it will honour it.