The law on horse-trading

There is wide-spread agreement that horse trading in the political arena is immoral and undesirable, and should be illegal. But what is the actual position of law on this? Kannan Kasturi looks back at the trail so far. 20 July 2008 - Most of the time, we never hear about how MPs vote in Parliament. Indeed, these days the various bills in the Lok Sabha and the legislatures are passed only by voice vote, and there is no need for counting. The ruling party votes 'yes' as one bloc, the opposition votes 'no' as another bloc, and the bill is passed into law. But every once in a while, comes a confidence motion, one or those rare instances when it matters how each MP votes. And we are now upon such a moment, a time for every Member of Parliament to stand up and be counted, literally. The stakes are high for the ruling Congress-led... [read full story]