New Delhi:
A day after it dodged a vote on the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha, the government insists that it did not let down either the country or Parliament. And blames the BJP for the Lokpal no-show. In that opinion, it is in a minority, just as it was yesterday ahead of the vote it did not hold.
The opposition, Team Anna and even key ally Trinamool Congress have been unsparing in their assessment of last night's midnight chaos in Rajya Sabha that ensured that no anti-corruption law was delivered in the winter session of Parliament.
The BJP will take no blame and has ample accusations of its own. The party says the government prevented the nation from getting a strong Lokpal Bill by "choreographing disturbance" in the House. In the Lok Sabha, said BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, the PM had made an intervention and Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee replied to the debate. Why not in the Rajya Sabha, they asked. A junior minister V Narayanasamy got up instead to reply because the government did not want a senior minister or the PM to face the humiliation of having papers snatched during the "orchestrated chaos," Ms Swaraj alleged.
And Mr Jaitley said, "At the stroke of midnight the biggest fraud was committed...the government created disturbance to bail itself out." The BJP wants the government to quit for "running away from a vote." The party says the UPA could not prove its numbers in either House. "They did not have the numbers in the Rajya Sabha and could not get 273 votes in the Lok Sabha", said Mr Jaitley, alluding to the constitutional amendment bill failing in the Lower House because the UPA did not have either a 2/3rd majority of those present in the House nor the 273 MPs present then to support it.
The Congress was quick to retaliate. "We condemn the obstructive conduct of the BJP and its allies. The objective was to keep the pot boiling, and not allow the law to be passed. Here is a case where assassins are blaming the victims, said Abhishek Manu Singhvi.
The Rajya Sabha was adjourned at 12 am yesterday after an hour of chaos. The government said it needed time to study the nearly 200 amendments moved by different parties. "We are prepared to sit here all night," said the BJP's Arun Jaitley, but the offer for an all-nighter was not accepted. Today he said, "When the House is in session, it is the master of its timetable. The house could have run."
But UPA Ministers insist that they did all they could to pass the crucial anti-corruption legislation before the midnight deadline expired, ending the Winter Session of Parliament. The BJP, they said, halted the journey of the bill by refusing to cooperate. "The opposition would rather see the nation fail than the government succeed," said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal this morning.
It's an argument few buy. Certainly not Team Anna which had abandoned its protest plans earlier this week with Gandhian activist Anna Hazare falling ill. Anna's associate Arvind Kejriwal slammed the government today accusing it of "misusing its power to stall a strong Lokpal Bill." Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was singled out for criticism for being a spectator to what played out in the Rajya Sabha. Eminent lawyer Shanti Bhushan said, "PM was sitting there as democracy was being murdered."
The activists who have worked with Anna all year to demand a strong Lokpal Bill say the events of last night prove that the government cannot be trusted. They have already announced that they will campaign against the Congress in the five states that vote before March. "This was just dada-giri (hooliganism) of the government," said Manish Sisodia, a member of Anna's core group.
Even the government's main ally was disappointed. "We are very very sad...the government handled it very badly. What happened yesterday was a caricature," said Derek O'Brien who is from Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress.
The Left says it holds the government "squarely responsible" for the morass. " The game plan was to ensure that the government did not accept important amendments," charged the Left's Sitaram Yechury. "They should have had decency and courage to openly state their position on what they wanted, why they were against our amendments," he added.
But the Left has also accused Mamata Banerjee of enabling the government's alleged sabotage. The government's free-fall in the Rajya Sabha -where it is in a minority even in peace time - was the result of the unflinching opposition from Ms Banerjee, who is a senior partner in the government. Her Trinamool Congress moved two amendments asking for the Bill to be purged of all references to Lokayuktas or state-level corruption agencies. Ms Banerjee's party said the section on Lokayuktas undermines the autonomy of state governments.
Despite reassurances and appeals from senior Congress leaders like Pranab Mukherjee, Ms Banerjee said she wanted her amendments to be put to vote. The Left says this was a conspiracy to help the government. Referring to the fact that the same bill had been passed by the Lok Sabha earlier this week, Mr Yechury said, "TMC's sudden aggression to federalism issue was strange because two days in the Lok Sabha, they did nothing about this. " He also pointed out Ms Banerjee is represented in the union cabinet which cleared the Lokpal Bill before it was sent to Parliament.
Ms Banerjee's MPs say that their opposition to the Lokayukta section or Part 3 of the Bill had been expressed at the parliamentary standing committee, where the Bill was discussed and reviewed between August and December. The Trinamool Congress says that like on other matters, the Congress showed little interest in or sensitivity to the concerns of its partner.
Every regional party -from Mulayam Singh Yadav's to Mayawati's - used the Lokpal debate yesterday to assert that a violation of federal principles could not be tolerated. The BJP's Arun Jaitley had argued the same point ardently in his speech. The opposition seemed to have found a unifying cause, and the BJP was confident that the government could be defeated. By 5 in the evening, the government's isolation was obvious. The emperor had no clothes. Mr Mukherjee met with two potential saviours - Lalu Prasad Yadav and Satish Chandra Misra of the BSP. Both parties had walked out before a vote on the Lokpal Bill in the Lok Sabha earlier this week. That helped the government push the Bill through the Lower House. Yesterday, however, they said they could not repeat that strategy.
Reports began emerging of the government's plan to provoke chaos in the House in an attempt to push the clock towards midnight, when the session of Parliament would expire. On cue, at about 11 pm, the last speaker in the debate, Rajniti Prasad ripped up some papers and flung them in the House. That led to an adjournment for 15 crucial minutes. When the Rajya Sabha reconvened, the government spelled it out. There would be no vote. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Bansal said the government needed time to study 187 amendments. He also stressed it was the prerogative of the government to decide when a vote should be held. "Many of the amendments were of a similar nature. They could have been taken up together," said Mr Prasad of the BJP.