The Left parties on Saturday asked the Centre to assure the citizens that the current Parliament would pass a strong Lokpal Bill without delaying it any further. Broadly supporting the three demands of social activist Anna Hazare — bringing Prime Minister and lower bureaucracy under the Lokpal's ambit and appointment of the Lokayuktas in States — the Left Front MPs dumped the Bill approved by the Manmohan Singh Cabinet.
Asking the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government to produce a new comprehensive Bill containing the “best features of all the Bills,” including that from the Jan Lokpal Bill, Sitaram Yechury of the CPI (M) said: “The country has waited for over 40 years to see a strong Lokpal. What we see today is the genuine fear of the people… Lokpal is something that cannot be delayed any further. It will be done at the earliest…this unqualified assurance must be given to Mr. Anna Hazare and the people outside. This unqualified assurance we must give to ourselves to improve our democracy,” he said in the Rajya Sabha while taking part in a discussion on the Lokpal issue.
Underlining that the three sticking points raised by Mr. Hazare and his team had to be addressed under the constitutional framework, Mr. Yechury said: “Indian Constitution is a social contract between the people and the State which was inviolable…fundamental features of the Constitution cannot be violated.”
“We should assess the process of maturation of our democracy a little more in the process and enact an effective Lokpal and a strong Lokpal which is neither the government draft today, nor the Jan Lokpal draft today. Let us incorporate all good points and make a new law that will give us a good stage in the future for better accountability, better transparency and better administration,” he added.
The CPI (M) MP said the Prime Minister should be under the Lokpal but with “certain safeguards,” while the Left parties had no problem in covering the lower bureaucracy too, but all of them cannot be covered under one authority. Similarly, the government could come up with a separate law for the citizen's charter. On Lokayukta for States, he said their appointments should be the privilege of the respective State governments and authorities.
Expressing concern over corruption in judiciary, Mr. Yechury said the need of the hour was to enhance accountability of the judiciary by establishing a National Judicial Commission, while the Lokpal Bill should have provisions to probe corporates and the nexus among them, bureaucrats and sections of the corporate media. He also pointed out that the selection process of the Lokpal should be “broad-based” and should not be “government-heavy.”
Speaking in the Lok Sabha, CPI (M) leader Basudeb Acharia said whatever was happening outside Parliament was a reflection of the anger of the people against the government. Corruption has proliferated because of the policies of the government post-liberalisation era and the lack of a proper mechanism of investigation and prosecution against the corrupt.
Mr. Acharia demanded expansion of the definition of corruption to tackle the menace more effectively. Besides, punitive action should be taken against corporate houses indulging in corrupt practices involving public servants.
Similarly, Gurudas Dasgupta (CPI) said the supremacy of Parliament could not be diluted and asked the government and the MPs to ponder over why the voice of one person rocked Parliament. Lambasting the government for speaking in many voices at this crucial time, he said: “There are more than one power centres in this coalition that is why you are not speaking in one voice…the office the Prime Minister had become a post box.”
Referring to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi's intervention of the Lokpal issue during the zero hour on Friday, he said it was at variance with the line taken by the government. “The Congress general secretary's speech during zero hour yesterday is at variance with the tenor of the speech of the Leader of the House. It is being interpreted as a hardline and confrontationist speech,” he said.
Rajya Sabha member D. Raja of the CPI alleged that the liberalisation policy of the government had fuelled corruption in the country during the past few years. “Now we hear about big scams involving mind-boggling sums of money...this enormous growth in corruption is because of the corporate houses which has a lot of influence on government of the day,” he pointed out. He targeted the “coterie” surrounding Mr. Hazare for complicating the issue.
