New Delhi:
At a meeting of all political parties on Wednesday, the government is preparing to agree to most of the demands made for the Lokpal Bill by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare. That includes broadly allowing the Lokpal or ombudsman agency to investigate the Prime Minister and junior bureaucrats on charges of corruption, though with safeguards for the former. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) - when investigating these charges of corruption - shall report to the Lokpal. The government will also offer to replicate the Lokpal model in all states.
These are issues that have forced bitter confrontations over the last few months between Team Anna and the government. And the government's new spirit of compromise comes a day after a debate on the Lokpal Bill, organized by the activists, where all major opposition parties publicly supported Anna's vision. The leaders at the debate did however emphasize that Anna must now let them do their job of ensuring that the government delivers a strong Lokpal or anti-graft bill, and that the finer points have to be discussed and ironed out in Parliament.
(Read)Virtually every major opposition party has said that if the Lokpal cannot review the PM or junior bureaucrats, it will be an ineffective ombudsman. Most also agreed that the country's premier investigating agency, the CBI, must be freed from government control, though there were some differences of opinion on who it should report to.
Anna has threatened that he will begin a hunger strike - his fourth this year - on December 27, if Parliament does not pass a potent Lokpal bill before its winter session concludes on December 21. Major allies of the UPA will meet on Tuesday to discuss the bill; it will also be reviewed by the cabinet before Wednesday's meeting with non-UPA parties.
A parliamentary committee that reviewed the Lokpal Bill presented its report last week to scathing criticism from the opposition and civil society activists. Both groups agreed the report did not reflect the opinion of the majority of the committee's members (there were 17 dissent notes or formal expressions of disagreement with its content). Parties like the BJP also said that the report betrayed an assurance given to Anna in August by Parliament. At that time, Anna was on his second hunger strike for the Lokpal Bill. Via "a sense of the House" agreement, Parliament promised to consider his basic principles for the bill. The activist was formally informed of this in a letter from the PM, and he then ended his fast on its 13th day. However, the report of the Standing Committee, headed by Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi did not reflect the must-haves that Anna had enlisted - like the Lokpal's jurisdiction over 57 lakh junior officers who interact with the public for services like processing of passports and drivers' licenses. At the Lokpal debate at Jantar Manar yesterday, the BJP's Arun Jaitley said that the "sense of the House" promise made to Anna had been broken.
(Watch) Others like Sharad Yadav said they would not allow "even a comma or a full stop" of that assurance to be changed by the government.
(Read: What Anna, parties said at Lokpal debate)