In Parliament, though, as Thursday went through its hours, opposition parties were in a tacit understanding with the government that Anna’s bill wouldn’t get their vote.
After negotiations through the night in Tihar jail, Team Anna finally forced the government to back down completely, and prised permission from the government for a 15-day fast at Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. The anti-corruption activist will be walking out of Tihar later today to continue with his fast from there.
In Parliament, though, as Thursday went through its hours, opposition parties were in a tacit understanding with the government that Anna’s bill wouldn’t get their vote.
This, even as Team Anna remained adamant that the Jan Lokpal Bill be tabled in Parliament. The opposition leaders remained coy on making their positions public. Even as they expressed support for Anna’s movement for the benefit of TV cameras, off record they were firm that they had little sympathy for his version of the bill.
Outside Parliament, however, the crowds couldn’t care less as they cheered the day’s developments. A YouTube video of Anna inside Tihar posted by former IPS officer Kiran Bedi was the first glimpse of a combative Anna since his arrest.
“The government betrayed us by not sending our Jan Lokpal Bill to the Union Cabinet. If the government still doesn’t agree to our demands, I will take permission for another seven days (beyond the 15 days granted” Anna said in the online post.
The BJP’s Rajya Sabha member Prakash Javdekar says that the only point that his party agrees with in the Jan Lokpal version is the inclusion of the prime minister in the ambit of the Lokpal.
His party colleague and Rajya Sabha member Ravi Shankar Prasad says that his party does not want the judiciary to be included in the Lokpal and that there should be a separate law for that.
RJD leader Lalu Yadav in the Lok Sabha was unambiguous in his
opposition to the civil society group’s insistence on the Jan Lokpal.
During his intervention in the House on Wednesday, he recalled his own political baptism in the Jayaprakash Narayan movement in the 1970s. The popular leader from Bihar said, “There cannot be another Mahatma Gandhi, there cannot be another Jayaprakash Narayan.” His conclusion is that Parliament alone has the right to make laws.
Even the CPI’s D Raja, a Rajya Sabha member, is firm that “It is the government’s bill that is before Parliament and we will consider only that. Where is the Jan Lokpal Bill? There will hundreds of documents outside Parliament but they don’t concern us.”
Obviously, the opposition has the convenient fiction that it will only deal with what is officially presented to it. Raja’s colleague and CPI-M leader Brinda Karat, Rajya Sabha member, felt the government’s Lokpal was very weak. But she accused the government of “trying to use Parliament as a shield to fight Hazare”.
NDA convenor and Lok Sabha member Sharad Yadav denied that there was any polarisation between the political class and civil society but indicated that the bill needed more discussion. “This is a strange idea you are coming up with,” he told DNA. “The Parliament reflects the mood of the people. It is not separate from it.”
Meanwhile, the BJP-led MCD swung into action since early Thursday to prepare the venue for Anna’s fast. They pressed nearly 250 employees along with several cranes and trucks to clean and level the rain-soaked ground.
The MCD’s deputy mayor, Anil Sharma, who is from the BJP, was personally overlooking the arrangements. But his presence at the site immediately drew derisive comments from the Congress who continued to accuse Team Anna of being a BJP/RSS front.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}