111 sitting MPs, MLAs switched parties in 4 years, 26% joined BJP: ADR
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New Delhi: As many as 111 sitting MPs and MLAs changed political parties after being elected to the current Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha and state Assemblies between 2022 and 2026, according to an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch.
The report, released on September 24, covers 26 Lok Sabha MPs, seven Rajya Sabha MPs and 78 MLAs across 17 states and Union Territories. Of the 111 lawmakers who changed parties, 29, or 26 per cent, joined the BJP, making it the second-largest recipient of lawmakers who switched sides.
The Naga People's Front (NPF) emerged as the biggest recipient, with 32 lawmakers, accounting for 29 per cent of the total. However, the NPF's figure was largely the result of a party merger in Nagaland in 2025 rather than individual lawmakers switching parties.
The party switching occurred across 17 states and Union Territories. Nagaland recorded the highest number, with 32 cases, followed by West Bengal with 20, Telangana with nine, and Goa and Punjab with eight each.
ADR said the 111 cases did not all constitute conventional defections. Its analysis included individual lawmakers who changed parties, party mergers, lawmakers who resigned from their seats, joined another party and subsequently won by-elections, as well as those who were disqualified and later returned to the legislature on another party's ticket.
The organisation cautioned that its list may not cover every such case because of the “lack of systematically maintained and readily accessible official [Election Commission of India] data”.
ADR, according to its website, is a non-partisan electoral-reform organisation founded by professors of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad in 1999. It is known for its legal battle that resulted in Supreme Court rulings requiring election candidates to disclose information about their criminal cases, finances and educational qualifications.
Of the 29 lawmakers who joined the BJP, seven were Rajya Sabha MPs and 22 were MLAs. No Lok Sabha MP in ADR's dataset moved to the BJP.
All seven Rajya Sabha members identified by ADR had been elected on Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) tickets. They are Swati Maliwal, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Kumar Pathak, Vikramjit Singh Sahney and Rajinder Gupta.
Among the MLAs who joined the BJP were eight Congress legislators from Goa, four Congress legislators from Gujarat and two from Himachal Pradesh. The report also lists five Janata Dal (United) MLAs from Manipur as having moved to the BJP.
Other BJP entrants included Samajwadi Party MLA Manoj Kumar Pandey from Uttar Pradesh, Congress MLA Nirmala Sapre from Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka MLA G Janardhan Reddy, whose Kalyana Rajya Pragathi Paksha (KRPP) merged with the BJP, according to ADR.
The report said Gujarat Congress MLAs C.J. Chavda, Arjun Modhwadia, Arvind Ladani and Chirag Patel resigned from the Assembly, joined the BJP and subsequently contested by-elections.
The BJP, however, was not the largest destination for lawmakers in the dataset.
The NPF received 32 of the 111 lawmakers, followed by the BJP with 29 and the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) with 20. The Congress received nine, Shiv Sena eight, the National People's Party (NPP) six and the People's Party of Arunachal four. Together, the NPF, BJP and NCPI accounted for 81, or 73 per cent, of the lawmakers who moved to other parties.
The NPF's 32 lawmakers were largely linked to the political realignment in Nagaland. ADR records that lawmakers originally elected on Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) tickets joined the NPF following the merger of the two parties in 2025.
The development was significant because the NDPP, led by Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, had 32 MLAs, while the Naga People's Front had two. The Nagaland Assembly has 60 members.
Rio, a former NPF leader, had formed the NDPP in 2017, with MLAs loyal to him joining the new party. The NDPP and BJP, which had 12 MLAs, were running the government in Nagaland. The Assembly had become opposition-less after other parties extended support to the ruling coalition.
Following the NDPP's merger with the NPF, Rio was elected leader of the NPF Legislature Party. He said the merger was aimed at creating “one strong regional party” to represent Naga aspirations and address the long-pending Naga political issue more effectively.
Thus, while the BJP's figure reflects MPs and MLAs joining the party, the NPF became the largest destination in ADR's dataset primarily because of the merger.
After the NPF and BJP, the NCPI received 20 lawmakers, accounting for 18 per cent of the total. Following the Trinamool Congress' defeat in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly election, 20 of its Lok Sabha MPs rebelled and, on June 14, announced their merger with the NCPI while extending support to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the Lok Sabha.
The NCPI had little national presence before the development. It made its electoral debut in the 2023 Tripura Assembly election but failed to win a seat. The TMC rebels reportedly opted for the merger route amid legal complications surrounding the formation of a separate parliamentary bloc.
On the other side, the NDPP accounted for the largest number of lawmakers who changed parties, with 25 cases, followed by the Trinamool Congress with 20 and the Congress with 19. Together, the three parties accounted for 64, or 58 per cent, of the 111 cases.
The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) accounted for nine cases, while the AAP and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) each accounted for seven. The Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) accounted for six, followed by the Janata Dal (United) with five and the NPP with four.
ADR found that 26 of the 543 Lok Sabha MPs covered by its analysis had changed parties, amounting to around 5 per cent. Seven of the 233 Rajya Sabha MPs, or 3 per cent, changed parties, while 78 of the 4,100 MLAs, around 2 per cent, were included in the list.
The organisation said its analysis was based on the affidavits of MPs and MLAs and examined lawmakers who changed parties after winning elections. The data covered elections and by-elections held between 2022 and 2026, with the dataset updated through July 12, 2026.
ADR describes itself as an organisation working on electoral and political reforms as well as voter awareness. It used the findings to renew its call for changes to India's anti-defection framework.
Among its recommendations, ADR called for an amendment to the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution so that decisions on disqualification are taken by the President in the case of MPs and by Governors in the case of MLAs, acting on the advice of the Election Commission, instead of by the presiding officers of the respective Houses.
It also recommended restricting defectors from holding public office and setting fixed timelines for deciding disqualification petitions.
Calling for an end to what it described as the “politics of convenience and self-gain”, ADR urged political parties and legislators to instead practise what it termed the “politics of conviction, courage and consensus”.
The report noted that the effectiveness of such recommendations would depend on their adoption by political parties and legislators, including parties and governments that have themselves benefited from lawmakers changing sides.