The 2023 Nagaland Assembly election produced a clear political picture: 25 seats for the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), 12 for the BJP, seven for the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), five for the National People’s Party (NPP) and two for the Naga Peoples Front (NPF), besides seats held by other parties and Independents.
Three years later, the party composition of the House has changed substantially without another Assembly election.
Seven NCP legislators merged with the NDPP in May 2025. Later that year, 31 NDPP legislators were declared merged with the NPF with effect from October 18, 2025. And on October 1, 2026, all five NPP legislators were declared merged with the NPF under Paragraph 4(2) of the Tenth Schedule.
The latest move has been opposed by the NPP, which has said it will pursue legal remedies. Its national vice president Vevoyi D Vadeo has questioned whether five MLAs elected on NPP tickets can constitute a merger with the NPF when the two political parties themselves have not merged.
That question goes to the heart of a broader constitutional issue: whether two-thirds of a legislature party can attract the merger protection under the Tenth Schedule when the original political party has not itself merged with another political party.
Nagaland’s recent political history provides a useful illustration of why the question matters.
In 2015, eight Congress MLAs moved to the ruling NPF-led political arrangement, leaving the Assembly without a conventional Opposition. The Congress subsequently initiated disqualification proceedings against the legislators. That episode involved a political realignment and subsequent disqualification proceedings, rather than the Paragraph 4(2) merger recognised in the later NPF-NDPP episode.
The political equations changed again in 2021, when the NPF Legislature Party joined the ruling United Democratic Alliance. In 2022, 21 NPF legislators formally merged with the NDPP. The Nagaland Legislative Assembly recognised the merger under Paragraph 4(2), after which TR Zeliang ceased to be Leader of the Opposition.
After the 2023 election, further changes followed.
On May 31, 2025, seven NCP legislators merged with the NDPP. The Speaker recognised the merger under Paragraph 4(2), taking the NDPP’s strength from 25 to 32.
Later that year, 31 NDPP legislators were declared merged with the NPF with effect from October 18, 2025. The Assembly notified the merger under Paragraph 4(2). The NDPP-NPF episode was accompanied by a merger of the two political parties themselves.
The latest development is different.
On October 1, 2026, the five NPP legislators were declared merged with the NPF under Paragraph 4(2). Unlike the NDPP-NPF merger, the NPP as a political party has not merged with the NPF.
The successive changes have left the Assembly’s party composition markedly different from the one produced by the 2023 election. The NPF, which entered the House with only two elected members, now has 39 legislators following the successive mergers.
That change brings the Tenth Schedule into focus.
Introduced through the Constitution (Fifty-Second Amendment) Act, 1985, the Tenth Schedule was intended to address defections by elected representatives. Paragraph 2 provides for disqualification in specified circumstances, including where a member voluntarily gives up membership of a political party or votes or abstains from voting contrary to the direction of the political party in circumstances covered by the Schedule.
Paragraph 4 provides an exception in cases of merger. It states that a member will not be disqualified where the original political party merges with another political party and the prescribed conditions are met. Under Paragraph 4(2), a merger is deemed to have taken place if not less than two-thirds of the members of the legislature party concerned have agreed to such merger.
The provision therefore contains both a reference to the “original political party” and a two-thirds numerical threshold concerning its legislature party.
That distinction is central to the present constitutional debate.
In its 2023 Constitution Bench judgment in *Subhash Desai v Principal Secretary, Governor of Maharashtra*, the Supreme Court held that a political party and its legislature party are distinct concepts. The judgment also examined the distinction in the context of Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule.
The question now before the Supreme Court is whether the two-thirds requirement within a legislature party can, by itself, attract the merger protection, or whether an actual merger of the original political parties is a necessary precondition under Paragraph 4.
The issue has significant implications for elected Houses. If two-thirds of legislators can claim merger protection by joining another political party without a merger of the original political organisation, the composition of an Assembly could be substantially altered during its term without a fresh election.
That question is now before the Supreme Court in a petition that could have implications beyond Nagaland.
On July 20, 2026, senior advocate and independent Rajya Sabha member Kapil Sibal filed a petition seeking an authoritative interpretation of Paragraph 4 of the Tenth Schedule. The petition questions whether the merger protection can be invoked merely because two-thirds of a legislature party joins another political party, without a merger of the original political parties.
On July 27, the Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre. A Bench of Justices PS Narasimha and Alok Aradhe indicated that the petition raised wider questions concerning the operation of the anti-defection law.
The wider litigation also raises questions concerning the authority of the Speaker and the circumstances in which a claimed merger can be recognised within a legislature.
The issue is not confined to Nagaland. The Supreme Court is also dealing with merger-related challenges involving Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MPs in the Lok Sabha, while the Goa defection litigation has also brought the two-thirds merger provision into question.
The constitutional issue, therefore, is not whether political parties may merge. The Tenth Schedule expressly recognises merger as an exception to disqualification when its conditions are met. The question is what those conditions require and who has the authority to determine whether they have been satisfied.
The issue has become more consequential since Parliament removed the earlier “split” exception from the Tenth Schedule through the 91st Constitutional Amendment in 2003. Legislators can no longer claim protection simply on the ground that a group has split from its political party. The merger provision consequently remains the principal express exception under which legislators can change political affiliation without attracting disqualification, subject to the requirements of Paragraph 4.
For Nagaland, the constitutional question is therefore not an abstract legal dispute.
The 2023 election produced one political map. Successive mergers have produced another, without a fresh Assembly election.
The constituencies remain represented by the same elected House for the duration of its term, but the party composition of that House has changed substantially.
The pending Supreme Court proceedings could therefore have significance well beyond the five NPP MLAs who have joined the NPF. They could clarify whether two-thirds strength within a legislature party is sufficient to invoke the merger exception, whether the original political party must also merge, and how the respective roles of constitutional authorities are to be understood.
Until then, Nagaland’s present Assembly offers a concrete illustration of a larger constitutional question: when an election-produced House changes substantially during its term, where does the Constitution draw the line between a merger and a defection?