Two months ago, I had promised here that I would publicly eat my key board and upload a video of it on YouTube if the UPA government passed a non-Joke version of the Lokpal bill. I regret to say that I won't have to eat my keyboard.
The UPA bosses — especially the super-intelligent trio of Pranab, Kapil, and Chidu — must be convinced that they are ruling a country of morons. Otherwise they wouldn't dare call the garbage that the cabinet has cleared 'Lokpal Bill'.
Unless Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and the little prince with the big dimples are deaf, dumb and blind, they can't but know what the people want and the country needs — a bill that actually sends a shiver down the spine of the country's corrupt netas and babus. But what the cabinet has cleared is an anti-corruption bill that is by the corrupt, of the corrupt, and for the corrupt.
Kapil Cymbal (as Rakhi Sawant lovingly refers to the excessively articulate, grey-haired gentleman) needs to get a simple fact into his finely tuned neural network: a Lokpal Bill that leaves the PM and the CJI out, excludes MPs's actions inside Parliament (so cash-for-votes scams can safely be perpetrated), keeps CBI out of Lokpal, and gives no prosecution powers to the Lokpal, will command no credibility with anyone except the aspiring corrupt Indian.
The cabinet-approved draft is completely based on the wish list of the five ministers who were part of the joint panel comprising civil society members that was supposedly formed to draft the Lokpal Bill. All the suggestions of Team Anna — the Bhushans, Arvind Kejriwal, Santosh Hegde, and of course, Anna Hazare — have been binned. What the cabinet-approved draft makes clear is that the entire exercise of making a joint panel with Team Anna was just a sham — a short-term manoeuvre to make the old man quit his fast. The UPA government never had any intention of passing a non-joke version of the Lokpal Bill. This is further confirmed by their refusal to table Team Anna's draft also in the Parliament, along with their own bogus version.
Well! What were you thinking? How can a party whose core competency is scam-generation produce a bill that will actually stymie corruption? The muck of the 2G scam has now spread to the entire cabinet, including the PM. And it is this scam-tainted cabinet that seeks to give India its landmark anti-corruption legislation. This is as good as expecting the wolf to prepare a strong Sheep Protection Bill, or getting Gabbar Singh to guard the village granary, or asking a nun to edit a porn film. It's not only a waste of time, it's counter-productive.
For not only will you not get a Lokpal Bill that is worth its name, you will instead have the most corrupt government in India's history trying to claim credit for having passed a historic anti-corruption legislation. If I was Rahul Gandhi, I would either find someplace safe to hide my shame, or come out and explain to the people of India why they don't deserve even a half-decent Lokpal Bill.
