Team Anna on Wednesday accused the Union government of indulging in a misinformation campaign and playing a hoax on people in the name of the Lokpal Bill. It also appealed to MPs to first interact with their constituencies and then exercise their legislative duties as parliamentarians in enacting the proposed historic law against corruption.
Anna Hazare, Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal minced no words in expressing their consternation at the government's draft. They said they would start an exercise from Thursday to contact all parties and their leaders on the issue ahead of an all-party meeting planned by the government.
The Centre wants to elicit the opinion of all parties and Chief Ministers at a meeting here on July 3 as the Joint Drafting Committee on the Lokpal Bill failed to throw up a common draft.
The two divergent versions on the Bill — one prepared by the government representatives and the other by civil society members — will be circulated ahead of the all-party meeting for the participants to express their views on each issue in detail.
The Centre intends to append the views emanating at the all-party meeting, along with the two drafts, before the Cabinet to decide on the Lokpal's structure and functions. The government representatives have also stated the possibility of the Bill being referred to a standing committee after its introduction in Parliament during the monsoon session.
Denying Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal's accusation that the civil society members were confronting Parliament by seeking to resume their agitational course, Mr. Kejriwal and Ms. Bedi said Mr. Hazare was not against Parliament, the government or the Congress. “We are concerned about corruption and we want a strong law.”
They said they were demanding a law from parliamentarians and since the government had a majority, it was being requested to take the initiative to give the country a strong and effective Lokpal.
Appealing to all leaders to evolve clarity on the conflicting issues in the two drafts, they expressed the hope that MPs would hold public meetings in their constituencies and elicit people's opinion.
They described the government draft as a hoax as there was no room for redress of the common man's grievance and it had made investigation complex, and denied the Lokpal the teeth to conduct a proper investigation. The CBI was a much better option in its current state.
