New Delhi:
In a letter handed over to senior Congress Pranab Mukherjee, CPI general secretary A B Bardhan has said that the party is not aware of who gave the mandate to the Joint Drafting Committee (JDC) of the Lokpal Bill.
Mukherjee had written a letter on May 31 to some political parties and chief ministers seeking their opinion on contentious issues like whether the Prime Minister and senior judges should be covered by the proposed bill.
In his reply sent on Saturday, Bardhan wrote, "We are not aware who gave the mandate to the Joint Drafting Committee (JDC) and at no stage, were the political parties involved or ever consulted during the entire process of constituting the JDC. They (political parties) were deliberately ignored....Needles to say, we are keen to have a strong Lokpal bill and insist that such a draft should be introduced in the forthcoming monsoon session of Parliament."
"We, as a political party, will most certainly state our views and suggestions during the discussion on the Bill inside Parliament," he added.
The committee appointed to prepare the Lokpal Bill pairs five minister s with five activists led by Anna Hazare. The bill is meant to be presented in Parliament before the end of this month.