By IANS,
New Delhi : In a major concession to civil society activists, parliament will Saturday hold a special sitting to take up the Lokpal issue in a bid to end the dragging fast by Anna Hazare even as Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi said that a Lokpal bill could not alone end corruption.
The government indicated that the Lokpal bill under consideration by a parliamentary panel could be amended to include some of key demands of Team Anna.
The 74-year-old Hazare looked far weaker on day-11 of his hunger strike, that has galvanized tens of thousands across the country and sparked a war in parliament between the Congress and the opposition.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held consultations with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Science and Technology Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, a former chief minister of Maharashtra, who are negotiating with Hazare and his associates.
The discussions took place after Team Anna made it clear that a mere discussion on the Lokpal issue in parliament will not help and it has to pass a resolution agreeing in principle to set up Lokayuktas in states, frame Citizen’s Charters for all government departments and include lower bureaucracy in the ambit of Lokpal.
Hazare said he would end his fast if these three issues are accommodated in the final version of the anti-corruption legislation.
The hardening of stand by Team Anna has reduced chances of an imminent breakthrough.
Mukherjee, also Leader of the House, will make a suo motu statement on the Lokpal issue immediately after the house assembles for the day’s sitting and the house will debate the issue following the statement, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal told reporters at the parliament house here.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) objected to a debate Friday on grounds that the deputy speaker had taken up a notice from Congress MP Sandeep Dikshit on the Lokpal issue. After another another day of disturbances in the Lok Sabha, Bansal said that Speaker Meira Kumar has given permission to Mukherjee to make a suo motu statement.
“There is no rule for such a debate and it will be on the statement of the minister,” he said, indicating that there will not be voting. The BJP has given a notice for a discussion under rule 184 in Lok Sabha and rule 167 in Rajya Sabha that entail voting.
In an impassioned speech, Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi said that a Lokpal bill could not alone end corruption, prompting Team Anna to hit back.
Calling his suggestion “a game-changer”, Gandhi said: “Witnessing the events of the last few days it would appear that the enactment of a single bill will usher in a corruption free society. I have serious doubts about this belief.
“An effective Lokpal law is only one element in the legal framework to combat corruption. The Lokpal institution alone cannot be a substitute for a comprehensive anti-corruption code.”
Gandhi, 41, also suggested that the Lokpal be given constitutional status equivalent to the Election Commission.
Gandhi’s speech triggered an uproar.
But even as he hailed Hazare for articulating the feelings of disillusionment over widespread corruption in India, the activist’s aides insisted that their Jan Lokpal bill should be passed first.
Saying he too favoured constitutional status for the ombudsman, Hazare aide Shanti Bhushan said: “First, let us at least have a legal (statutory) authority as demanded by Anna Hazare.”
Mukherjee, however, said that some proposals of the Jan Lokpal bill, if accepted, would be difficult to implement, indicating that the government was trying its best to hammer out a compromise.
He, however, assured that the parliamentary standing committee will look at all views on the Lokpal issue after the discussion in parliament Saturday.
“The parliamentary standing committee will have to take into account all views. The legislation will be amended. The whole house will have to decide whether to accept these amendments,” Mukherjee told CNN-IBN in an interview with Karan Thapar.
Responding to the demand of Team Anna to bring the lower bureaucracy in the ambit of the Lokpal bill, Mukherjee said if the legislation were to bring cabinet secretary to a railway gangman in the purview of the same legislation, it would be difficult to manage.
“It must be practical and implementable,” he said.
Reacting to the demand for state Lokayukta, Mukherjee said the amended Lokpal bill can at best provide for a model legislation that can be used by the state governments to enact their own Lokayukta.
Mukherjee rejected charges of the government mishandling the Hazare agitation saying it is trying to reach Anna Hazare with “a rational approach.”
Concern continued to mount over the failing health of Hazare, who looked pale as he spent Friday mostly lying down. For 11 days, he has survived on water and has lost seven kg since the fast began.
Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray spoke to the anti-corruption crusader from Mumbai on telephone voicing concern over his health.
There were, however, signs of dissonance within the Anna Hazare camp over the continuance of his fast with former Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde joining another Anna associate, Swami Agnivesh, in saying that the hunger strike should be called off now.
In New Delhi, a young man wearing an ‘I Am Anna’ T-shirt entered the parliament complex and shouted slogans hailing Hazare before he was seized by security personnel.
Some 100 people raised slogans outside Rahul Gandhi’s house on Tughlaq Lane.