As the political drama surrounding the fast by social activist Anna Hazare made way for the 10-member drafting committee for a Lokpal Bill, the Bharatiya Janata Party's stance has changed slowly but surely from open support to the Hazare-led group to scepticism.
Within a day of Mr. Hazare sitting on fast here, BJP president Nitin Gakari said the social activist's views on the Lokpal Bill were “reasonably correct” and his party's “sympathy” was with him. It was time the country got a Lokpal.
A few days later, after Mr. Hazare and his supporters virtually gave the government an ultimatum that the proposed legislation must be passed before August 15, senior leader L.K. Advani was quick to promise the BJP's support in the passage of the Bill in “this monsoon session” even if it meant hurrying it through the standing committee, to which new Bills are normally referred for a scrutiny.
But already there are voices in the party that have questioned the presence of the father-son team of Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan among the five nominees from civil society on the drafting committee. Questions about this were also raised publicly by yoga ‘guru' Ramdev, seen as being close to the party. While party leaders have said they would like the Bill to “cover” all Ministers as well as the Prime Minister, they have indicated that the judiciary too could be brought within its ambit, provided its independence was not compromised in any way.
Some senior party leaders have been telling reporters that just because the drafting committee had NGOs on it, it did not mean that the BJP would not like to have its say when the final draft was put before it. “We will give our reaction at that time. Why should we talk about the provisions of the Jan Lokpal Bill now?”
But, nevertheless, they also fear that the kind of Lokpal, the Jan Lokpal Bill has presented, with the power to receive the complaint, order and supervise the investigation, prosecute and punish, would be a travesty of what is considered a fair and just procedure. The Lokpal cannot be the investigator, prosecutor and hangman rolled into one, they point out.
What is not being stated loudly, but is admitted privately by some party leaders, is that while the BJP took up the corruption issue — an entire winter session was lost on its demand for a joint parliamentary committee to look at the 2G spectrum affair — it was a handful of NGOs that seem to have run away with the credit for getting things moving. They agree that if indeed an effective Lokpal Bill were to be passed, most of the credit would go to Mr. Hazare and his supporters, some to the government, and very little to the Opposition. The view is that the party's plank has been virtually pulled away from under its feet.
Several BJP leaders, especially those from Maharashtra, did not care to hide their scepticism of the Hazare brand of politics. “It is best to keep a good distance away from him,” said one party man, while pointing out that the Justice P.B. Sawant Commission set up in 2003 had found him guilty of “corrupt practice and maladministration” in its report of 22 February 2005.
On the drafting panel chairman Shanti Bhushan, a senior party leader recalled his legal contribution in getting Indira Gandhi unseated from Parliament in the days preceding the Emergency and his membership of the BJP from 1980 to 1984. As for the controversy over a taped conversation (denounced by his son Prashant Bhushan as fake) and his land deal in Allahabad, he said: “If you [Shanti Bhushan] are a crusader against corruption, you will be scrutinised by the highest standards.”
