Smaller parties fail to digest pan-Indian Lokpal

The two major parties, Congress and the BJP, with a national base, were not averse to Anna Hazare and his associates for a Lokayukta which could be legislated by parliament and who also favoured that Lokpal should look into complaints against lower bureaucracy, including those appointed by state governments.

Interestingly, many of these smaller parties belong to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). During the debate on the statement made by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee about developments relating to the Lokpal bill and Anna Hazare, Biju Janata Dal leader Bhartrihari Mahtab said that nothing should be done to violate the federal structure of the constitutions and that states’ rights to make laws should not be compromised.

Mahtab was also opposed to the idea that the Lokpal could take disciplinary action against errant officials, saying that no single entity should be prosecutor, judge and executor.

Leader of opposition and BJP leader Sushma Swaraj had argued that parliament could make a facilitating law under Article 252 of the Constitution which allows the central legislature to make laws with the consent of two or more states.

Shiv Sena leader Anant Geetha warned that creating a ‘super-power’ like the Lokpal as suggested by Anna Hazare and his team could create problems of its own, and that the remedy could be worse than even the disease.

He asked not to legislate the Lokpal in haste. He expressed concern for Anna Hazare’s health, cited Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray’s letter to Hazare and the meeting of Thackeray’s grandson’s meeting with Hazare. He disclosed that Thackeray spoke to Hazare over the mobile phone for about 12 minutes.

AIADMK leader Thambidurai cited Annadurai, the man who brought DMK to power in Tamil Nadu in 1967, and said that they did not need Anna Hazare to look at the problems of the polity.

He said that his party did not want the prime minister to be brought under the Lokpal’s ambit, with our without qualifications.

Rahstriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Lalu Prasad Yadav, while expressing concern over Anna Hzare’s fast and reiterated that the House should request him to end his fast, but went on to assert that parliament’s rights cannot be abrogated, and that parliament remains the supreme law-making agency.

BJP’s Varun Gandhi declared that his party was fully supporting the Anna Hazare agitation, but he said that the rumours that the party was behind the agitation from the start was not right.

He argued that it was not right to place the privileges of parliament over that of the privileges of the people, who were the real sovereign in a democracy.