Politics of Cross Carpeting
Beneath the vaulted chamber’s stone,
A choice is made, a shift is known.
The member rises, walks the aisle,
A changed allegiance, gone the smile
That once was shared with party peers
Through common hopes and common fears.
The vote that gave the seat its worth
Was rooted in their local earth
Yet now they cite a conscience clear,
A duty to a higher tier.
Is it a betrayal, stark and crude,
Of those who gave the mandate, stewed
In trust now spurned? A selfish turn
When party fires cease to burn?
Or is it courage, rare and true,
To don a different, principled hue?
When platforms shift from what was sworn
Beneath the dawn of election morn,
Is loyalty to faction and line
More vital than the public’s need?
The Pro: A mind that will not bend
To party whip, a steadfast friend
To personal conviction’s light,
Who puts integrity to flight
Above the strict and binding plea
Of mere partisan decree.
It breaks the echo chamber’s wall,
Can make a government to fall,
Or bring fresh thought across the floor
To challenge and to even score.
The Con: A fracture in the trust
That voters place, as all they must,
In symbols, teams, a platform pledged.
Is this ambition, thinly edged?
The seat becomes a personal fee,
Not held in sacred proxy.
It mocks the group whose work and donor
Built the campaign’s cornerstone, or
Treats Parliament as chessboard game,
Diminishing its storied name.
So in this walk from desk to desk,
A multifaceted tale we unmask.
A move that can be brave or base,
A loss of faith, or saving grace.
The carpet feels each tread, each sin,
Without and also from within.
And in the record, cold and grand,
It’s how they walk that we must scan:
For country’s call, or just a hand
Reaching for a different strand.
©TheVillageBoy
(The figure man who loves alphabets)
