India, June 15 -- Only a rookie observer of Indian politics will believe that 20 rebel Trinamool Congress (TMC) Lok Sabha members spontaneously decided to join a little-known Tripura-based party that has never had a lawmaker anywhere in the country and has netted only slightly more votes than NOTA in the handful of elections it has fought. In joining the Nationalist Citizens Party of India, the rebel TMC parliamentarians may be able to save their seats in the Lok Sabha but their actions have served the latest indictment of India's anti-defection laws. Political parties have found a way around the penalties of the anti-defection laws and control over the Speaker's position has come to acquire far more importance than the spirit of the law....