The tide in the affairs of men when taken at the flood, the noble Brutus believed, could lead to fortune. The president of Bengal’s Bharatiya Janata Party would certainly appreciate Shakespeare’s foresight. Having taken Brutus’s advice — seizing the moment, as it were — the BJP in Bengal is hoping to cash in on the possible tide of defections from its principal political rival, the ruling Trinamul Congress, that the saffron party seeks to unseat in the upcoming assembly elections. Suvendu Adhikari, one of TMC’s most prominent faces, has resigned from the party. The word is that he would lead a flood of leaders — members of parliament and legislative assemblies as well as lower-level functionaries — not only from East and West Midnapore, Mr Adhikari’s fief, but also such other districts as Howrah and Hooghly, to the BJP. If this does come to pass, the TMC’s electoral prospects in its bastion in South Bengal could well be jeopardized. The BJP believes that with Mr Adhikari changing his spots, as many as 40 assembly seats would be up for grabs. Little wonder then that tides have been on the chief minister’s mind as well. Mamata Banerjee has scoffed at deserters, portraying them as opportunists who swim with the party in high tide and desert it when the waters are low.

There is another important adage that seems to have slipped Ms Banerjee’s mind. History, the wise ones say, has a penchant for repeating itself as tragedy. The TMC, its political adversaries have reasons to believe, is now being paid back in its own coin for the party, when the tide was high, had been accused of engineering similar defections from its opponents. The TMC has had no qualms about bleeding dry the Left and the Congress — its chief challengers at one point of time — in an effort to establish its political hegemony. The BJP is now applying the same strategy: Mukul Roy, a turncoat from the TMC himself, has waxed eloquent about this tactic, calling it an essential part of politics. Indeed, the tides in national politics mirror the indispensability of defection as a political weapon that is used most effectively by the BJP.

Of course, it is unreasonable to expect that Mr Roy and his ilk would concern themselves with the pitfalls of their actions. The frequent change in political jerseys bares the moral and ideological vacuum that lies at the heart of India’s competitive politics. This amorality has neutralized both legal deterrents and conscience. The existing format of the anti-defection law has been markedly ineffective against such chicanery. Worryingly, voters do not mind such mischief either, even though the defector, by jumping ship, abuses the electoral verdict concerned. If this ignoble tradition is not rooted out, the future of electoral democracy would be bleak in India. The party with the deepest pockets could wield the sceptre permanently.

But then Mr Adhikari and Mr Roy cannot be bothered with such trivialities. For they have Bengal’s crown to wrest from Ms Banerjee.