The Leader of Opposition, Sushma Swaraj, has appealed to social activist Anna Hazare to end his fast-unto-death and the Centre to convene an all-party meeting to work on the Lok Pal Bill.
Ms. Swaraj was addressing journalists here on Thursday while campaigning for the Puducherry Assembly elections.
Calling corruption a 'frontal issue', Ms. Swaraj said the easy play of 'corrupt' money in these Assembly elections through freebies had “shamed our democracy.” Freebies, she said, were a manifestation of corruption, and the swindled money was just redistributed in the form of “refrigerators, pressure cookers and mixers.”
However, people were entitled to take their money back through freebies and still vote with conscience. “They cheated you, now you teach them a lesson,” she said.
Lauding the Election Commission's crackdown on the movement of money in Tamil Nadu, Ms. Swaraj said there was a greater fluidity to corrupt money in the form of ‘liquor, currency and freebies' in the UT, but the EC was yet to act as stringently in the Union Territory.
Hopeful that the people would send a “good number” of BJP MLAs to the Puducherry Assembly, she said her party would function as an effective Opposition in the Union Territory.
