Observing that the public has been “taken for a ride” on Lokpal issue, Karnataka Lokayukta Justice Santosh Hegde on Sunday said Anna Hazare’s next movement should be different from the one in April when he sat on a fast-unto-death.
Asked whether Hazare should start a movement again, Justice Hegde said that there should be another one but it should “somewhat different from what took place from April 5. We must go around the country to impress upon people the need to have a strong Lokpal.”
“They (people) have been taken for a ride. I don’t use the word cheated because it is different,” he said when asked if the people had been “cheated” on the Lokpal issue with the Cabinet approving a draft of the bill ignoring key demands of the civil society representatives.
Justice Hegde was also part of the Joint Drafting Committee on the Lokpal Bill as a representative of the civil society, which has been upset over the exclusion of the Prime Minister from the cabinet approved bill.
Asked about Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari using the phrase “tyranny of the unelected” for the debate on the Lokpal issue, Justice Hegde said, “Who are these unelected people. In India where rajneeti (politics) is prajaprabhutva (people oriented), there is nothing like tyranny.”
“If at all there is tyranny, it comes from the elected people who are our elected representatives. They have forgotten the true meaning of word democracy, which is for the people, of the people and by the people. Now it has become the government of the elected and for the elected,” he told NDTV.
Lashing out at Mr. Tewari, Justice Hegde said, “It is sad to see that the young leader is so arrogant. He has forgotten the people of India and calls them tyrants. I don’t think more worse words have been used against citizens of India.”
