New Delhi:
The anti-corruption Lokpal Bill, for which Anna Hazare is fasting in Maharashtra, will be taken up in the Rajya Sabha on Monday. The Samajwadi Party, which opposes the bill, repeatedly disrupted house today and threatened to support a no-confidence motion on Telangana if the government pushed the Lokpal Bill.
Here are the latest updates on this story:
The Samajwadi Party, a key ally of the government, opposes the Lokpal Bill because it says the ombudsman will be endowed with super-powers and it will lead to a police state.
The Lokpal is an independent national agency empowered to investigate charges of corruption against government servants.
Anna wants the bill to be cleared by Parliament urgently. He says he will not eat till then. He is on the fourth day of a fast.
A version of the bill was cleared by the Lok Sabha in December 2011, but it was stalled in the Rajya Sabha. A Parliamentary committee then studied it and unanimously recommended some amendments.
The government today brokered a deal with the BJP by agreeing to include one of two key recommendations of the parliamentary panel that are not in the redrafted Bill.
The provision that will be added to the bill prevents the transfer of an officer handling an investigation without the Lokpal's permission.
Following the pact, the BJP backed down on its other demand that the bill allow raids on an officer being investigated without prior information.
Though the Samajwadi Party's opposition will not stop the bill in the Rajya Sabha, where the party has just eight MPs, the threat of a no-trust vote in the Lok Sabha is worrying for the government.
The government's sudden attention to the Lokpal bill is under the influence of Anna and Arvind Kejriwal, whose brand-new Aam Aadmi Party made a stunning debut in the Delhi elections because it promised to check corruption.
Reading the mood of the public, the government, ringed in by several corruption scandals, wants to be seen as a supporter of a law that would help combat graft.
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