Freedom at the Park, redux

At least 1,000 people gathered at Freedom Park on Sunday to campaign to save the institution of Lok Ayukta.

The scene was reminiscent of the anti-corruption movement that saw at least six lakh foot-falls over 15 days in August.

Although the number on this Sunday was much less, it was a sign of growing anger towards what the government is doing.

“All the government has to do is follow a process to appoint the Lok Ayukta, but they are beating around the bush and doing nothing,” said Prithvi Reddy, coordinator of India Against Corruption (IAC).

“The chief minister says it is ‘tradition’ for the ruling party to appoint the Lok Ayukta. But considering that there has been no consensus, how difficult is it to call for a meeting of the opposition parties, discuss and come up with a suitable candidate? The governor will agree to the candidate thus chosen,” he said.

Why follow tradition when there is a process, he asks.

“When there is a law available, why not just work with it? All that the state government has to do is call, discuss and select a suitable candidate. How hard is that?” he asked.Both the Central as well as the state governments have the chance to set a new precedent here, he added, but there is a conflict of interest in both cases. “We are asking the law breakers themselves to make a strong law,” he said.

Toothless Lokpal Srinivas Allivilli, of Saaku Corruption said, “They think they can fool the people with a toothless Lokpal. The top-most of the hierarchy are not there and neither the bottom half. We are willing to see what happens. But from where we are standing, it looks like either the government is trying to fool us or they truly do not know what the people are capable of when they are awakened,” he said.Srinivas asked what happened to the promise government made in August. Reddy, one of the coordinators of the movement, joked,

“Sure they have given us a Jan Lokpal. But with loopholes so big and so obvious, an elephant can pass through it.”