Accountability or Ambush? Inside the Proposed Bill That’s Shaking India’s Parliament

India’s Parliament is no stranger to big promises packaged as reform. But Amit Shah’s latest legislative push — three bills that could automatically remove Prime Ministers, Chief Ministers, or any minister if they spend 30 days in jail on serious charges — has set off alarm bells across the political spectrum.

On paper, it sounds like accountability finally catching up with politics. In practice, critics say it could be a constitutional landmine. So, is this really about cleansing politics, or about scripting the next chapter of political control?

The Bills and Their Punchline

At the heart of the storm is the Constitution (130th Amendment) Bill, 2025, alongside amendments targeting Union Territories and Jammu & Kashmir. The message is blunt: 30 consecutive days behind bars = automatic removal from office. No conviction needed.

That’s a sharp pivot from the Representation of the People Act, 1951, where disqualification kicks in only after conviction. The new formula flips the sequence: punishment first, trial later. Sure, reappointment is possible after acquittal, but by then the political damage is done.

The Morality Pitch

For Amit Shah, this is a moral crusade. “Should the country be run by someone from inside a jail cell?” he asked, pointing to cases like Arvind Kejriwal, who managed Delhi’s affairs while incarcerated. The government argues that civil servants get suspended the moment they’re arrested — so why should elected leaders, who wield far greater power, be exempt?

Supporters are calling it a “course correction” for a democracy plagued by corruption and criminalisation. Kishan Reddy even declared that “the entire nation backs” this move. The optics work well: a government painting itself as the one finally raising the moral bar.

The Trap Door Everyone Sees

But peel back the rhetoric and you’ll find the unease. Opposition parties are calling it everything from a “super-Emergency” to a “death knell for democracy.” Priyanka Gandhi says it lets anyone in power weaponise central agencies to topple rivals: “Get a Chief Minister arrested for a month, and you’ve engineered a political coup — no conviction required.”

Mamata Banerjee went further, warning that it “mutilates democracy” by turning police custody into a shortcut for regime change. Kapil Sibal asked the obvious: how many BJP ministers have ever faced such arrests? The silence speaks volumes.

This isn’t just paranoia. India has a long history of central agencies like the ED and CBI being used as political bulldozers. Couple that with the timing, coming amid Supreme Court warnings to agencies not to overreach, and the bills start to look less like reform and more like a preloaded weapon.

History, Law, and a Slippery Slope

Legally, this is uncharted territory. Past recommendations — from the Law Commission to the Supreme Court — did suggest stronger filters for politicians facing serious charges. But they stressed one safeguard: disqualification should come only after a charge is framed by a court, not merely on police action.

By lowering the bar to “30 days in custody,” Parliament risks bypassing that safeguard altogether. The principle of innocent until proven guilty gets trampled, while voters who elected a leader see their mandate erased without due process.

And history doesn’t offer much comfort. From the Emergency of 1975 to recent sedition and UAPA cases, India knows how easily “rule of law” can become “rule by law.”

Beyond the Letter of the Law

Here’s the real twist: whether or not these bills pass in their current form, they already serve a political purpose. They let the government posture as the knight cleaning up dirty politics, while forcing the opposition into a defensive crouch. The debate itself becomes a weapon.

Accountability or authoritarianism? Cleansing politics or consolidating power? The truth is, this legislation could be both — a safeguard on paper, a trap in practice. And maybe that’s the point. Because in Indian politics, laws aren’t just written for governance. They’re written for optics.

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