Indian politics can become hilarious sometimes, and for your own good health, do not take your MPs or MLAs seriously. Every once in a while, the great drama of coalition politics unfolds in a state or centre. A breakaway group of legislators claim they have switched allegiance, and all hell breaks loose for some time till a govt gets in seat again. Now the conventional wisdom is that breakaway faction of legislators should be herded and protected — like one would fence precious cattle so it is not stolen.

Same story repeats again in Karnataka, the breakaway JD(S) legislators are being taken away from Bangalore to safer havens, and it is quite a picnic as one of them said on TV news. The interesting thing was the driver of the bus was one of the legislators, ‘doing his duty for the party’ (no not people, they come later). Understandably, they do not trust even a professional driver, for who knows he may lead them to where!??

Obviously, the representatives of people cannot be trusted that they will not switch allegiance given a carrot by some other policitian, and hence they are whisked away like cattle. They do not trust their own ilk, and the public still elects the same folks in elections. If elections could be made easier so that ‘non-politicians’ could contest, such decline in quality of legislators can be checked. The measures being discussed about funding of elections are a step in the right direction.