New Delhi, May 12: No splits, only mergers.

Pre-election groupings that fall short of numbers will no longer be able to claim majority and form a government by engineering a one-third “split” in a political party.

The new anti-defection legislation, which the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government enacted in December, does not recognise such divisions.

The act recognises only the “merger” of the “original” party with another.

“It is not just enough that the legislative party ‘merges’ with another party. The original party, including the president, general secretary and the executive, besides the state and district units, should merge with another party,” legal circles clarified.

The amendment to the Constitution’s 10th Schedule involved dropping of a provision that legalised a split if one-third of a legislature party broke away. The provision recognised such a group as a separate party.

But with the amendment doing away with the clause, splits have become virtually impossible.

Clause 4 of the Constitution’s 10th Schedule says “a member of a House shall not be disqualified if his original party merges with another political party”. However, there is a rider to this clause under which “not less” than two-thirds of the legislators of the merging party should have to approve the merger.

According to legal opinion in the Election Commission, “it will be extremely difficult for MPs of a party to switch sides in a hung Parliament”. A commission official said this is “because the law demands that such legislators wanting to support an alliance in which their party is not a partner should seek the opinion of the primary party members”.

In the case of the split in the Nationalist Congress Party, both the groups — one led by former Lok Sabha Speaker P.A. Sangma and the other by Maharashtra strongman Sharad Pawar — had claimed they were the “original NCP” and demanded the party symbol.

The Election Commission decided in favour of Pawar on the basis of the majority “within the NCP organisation” and “not merely on the basis of the strength of the legislature party” that both groups claimed, the commission official pointed out.

In the case of a party “merging” or members breaking away and claiming the original party status, the case will go to the court of the Lok Sabha Speaker and not to the commission. Depending on the Speaker’s verdict, an appeal could be made in a high court or the Supreme Court.

The new law, which was notified in the gazette on January 2, also says a defector has to resign from his parent party and contest afresh on the symbol of the outfit he chooses to join.

The provisions of the anti-defection law are applicable to a group like the Telengana Rashtra Samiti as its candidates contested on one symbol, though the TRS is neither a registered nor a recognised political party.