At least 111 sitting MPs and MLAs switched political parties after winning elections, according to a fresh analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and National Election Watch. The study examined elections and by-elections conducted between 2022 and 2026 and covered 26 Lok Sabha MPs, seven Rajya Sabha MPs and 78 MLAs. Of these 111 lawmakers, 29, or 26%, joined the BJP, making it the second-biggest recipient of lawmakers who changed parties.
The Naga People's Front (NPF) emerged as the biggest recipient, with 32 lawmakers, accounting for 29% of the total. However, these entries came through a merger in 2025 rather than individual MLAs switching parties.
Released on September 24, the report found that party switching took place 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.
Importantly, the 111 cases did not all involve straightforward defections. ADR also included party mergers, lawmakers who resigned and then changed parties before contesting and winning by-elections, as well as lawmakers who were disqualified and later won elections on another party's ticket. ADR noted that its list may not include every instance because of the "lack of systematically maintained and readily accessible official [Election Commission of India] data."
According to its website, ADR is a non-partisan electoral-reform organisation founded in 1999 by professors from IIM Ahmedabad. It is particularly known for a legal battle that resulted in Supreme Court rulings making it mandatory for candidates to disclose their criminal cases, finances and educational qualifications.
WHO WERE THE 29 WHO JOINED BJP?
Of the 29 lawmakers identified by ADR as having joined the BJP, seven were Rajya Sabha MPs and 22 were MLAs. According to the dataset, none of the Lok Sabha MPs switched to the BJP.
The seven Rajya Sabha MPs listed by ADR were all elected from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). They are Swati Maliwal, Ashok Mittal, Harbhajan Singh, Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Kumar Pathak, Vikramjit Singh Sahney and Rajinder Gupta.
Among the MLAs were eight Congress legislators from Goa, four Congress MLAs from Gujarat and two from Himachal Pradesh. ADR also recorded five JD(U) MLAs from Manipur as having moved to the BJP.
Other lawmakers who joined the BJP 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 CJ Chavda, Arjun Modhwadia, Arvind Ladani and Chirag Patel resigned, joined the BJP and later contested by-elections.
HOW 2-MLA NPF GOT 32 MLAs FROM NAGALAND CM's PARTY
The BJP was not the biggest destination for lawmakers in the dataset.
The Naga People's Front (NPF) accounted for 32 of the 111 cases, or 29%, largely due to the political realignment in Nagaland.
According to ADR, lawmakers who had originally been elected on Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) tickets joined the NPF following a merger.
The movement of NDPP MLAs to the NPF in October 2025 was notable in itself. The NDPP, led by Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, had 32 MLAs, while the NPF had only two.
The Nagaland Assembly has 60 members.
Rio, who was an NPF leader, founded the NDPP in 2017, and MLAs supporting him subsequently joined the new party.
The NDPP and the BJP, which had 12 MLAs, were governing Nagaland together. The state had an opposition-less Assembly, with all other parties extending support to the ruling coalition.
Following the NDPP's merger with the NPF, Rio was chosen as the Leader of the NPF Legislature Party. Rio said the move was intended to build "one strong regional party" that could represent Naga aspirations and more effectively address the long-pending Naga political issue.
Thus, while MPs and MLAs directly joined the BJP, the NPF became the top destination for switching lawmakers because of a merger.
26 LOK SABHA MPs AMONG PARTY SWITCHERS
After the NPF's 32 and the BJP's 29, the Nationalist Citizens Party of India (NCPI) received 20 lawmakers, or 18%. Following the Trinamool Congress's defeat in the 2026 West Bengal Assembly election, 20 of its Lok Sabha MPs rebelled and announced their merger with the little-known NCPI on June 14, while also extending support to the BJP-led NDA in the Lok Sabha.
The NCPI had virtually no national footprint before the switch. The party had contested its first election in the 2023 Tripura Assembly polls, where it failed to win a seat. However, the TMC rebels reportedly opted for the merger route amid legal complications surrounding the formation of a separate parliamentary bloc.
The Congress received nine lawmakers, Shiv Sena eight, NPP six and the People's Party of Arunachal four.
On the other side, the NDPP had the highest number of lawmakers who switched away, with 25, followed by the Trinamool Congress with 20 and the Congress with 19. Together, these three parties accounted for 64 of the 111 cases, or 58%.
ADR found that 26 of the 543 Lok Sabha MPs covered in its analysis had changed parties, representing about 5%. Seven of the 233 Rajya Sabha MPs, or 3%, had switched parties, while 78 of the 4,100 MLAs, roughly 2%, were included in the list.
The organisation says it works on electoral and political reforms as well as voter awareness. Its September 24 report examined sitting lawmakers who switched parties after winning elections, with the election affidavits of MPs and MLAs serving as a key source of information.
ADR CALLS FOR TIGHTER ANTI-DEFECTION RULES
ADR used the findings to once again call for reforms to India's anti-defection framework. Among its recommendations, it proposed amending the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution to transfer the authority to decide disqualification cases from the presiding officers of Houses to the President for MPs and governors for MLAs, with decisions being taken on the advice of the Election Commission.
The organisation also called for restrictions on defectors occupying public offices and for fixed deadlines to be established for deciding disqualification petitions.
Urging an end to what it called the "politics of convenience and self-gain", ADR said political parties and legislators should instead follow the "politics of conviction, courage and consensus". It remains uncertain how extensively political parties will adopt ADR's recommendations, particularly since governments led by different parties have themselves benefited from lawmakers changing sides.
