New Delhi:
At Jantar Mantar on Sunday, Anna Hazare set the stage for the final act of the Lokpal Bill saga that he began scripting in April this year at the same venue. At his day-long token fast, as he described it, against the government's intent to deliver a weak Lokpal Bill to combat corruption, Opposition parties shared the stage and vowed to fight for a strong and effective Lokpal. But, they said, that fight would happen in Parliament.
"Leave it to the wisdom of Parliament," said Left leader AB Bardhan.
Parliament began today and has nine working days left in this Winter Session. In that it has to discuss a draft Bill tabled by a Standing Committee, gather consensus on the contours of that bill and then make it law. Sharad Yadav of the JD(U) has suggested that the session can be extended or a special session can be called to ensure that Parliament debates the crucial bill thoroughly before passing it. But on the other side of the Winter Session, which ends on December 21, hangs Anna Hazare's threat that he will launch an indefinite hungerstrike and campaign against the Congress wherever an election is held if the Lokpal Bill is not passed.
That threat will shape much of the strategy of the UPA government, which is in action mode. The Cabinet will review the Lokpal Bill on Tuesday. The Congress will then seek the opinion of key allies like Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday where all points of contention will be discussed threadbare. Once the allies' support is sewn up, the government will carry the UPA's considered views as a political group into a meeting of all political parties the same day. In the hope that by the time the issue is discussed on the floor of the House, it has the approval of all sides and is unlikely to get derailed there.
The Congress saw Anna Hazare's attempt to have a political debate at Jantar Mantar as "an insult to Parliament", in the words of party spokesman Rashid Alvi, and the party stayed away. Now Kirti Azad of the BJP, a member of the standing committee that drafted the Bill and a strong voice of dissent in that forum, says he views the PM's call for an all-party meeting as a subversion of the Parliamentary process. "I feel humiliated and insulted. I mean, I may not agree to this draft to an extent, but I feel humiliated and insulted that Prime Minister is calling an all-party meeting...because whatever wrong they have done should be discussed in Parliament rather than getting a consensus against the wishes of the people," he said.
A livid Mr Azad said on the NDTV programme We The People that he would want his party not to attend the all-party meeting on Wednesday. It will of course not be easy for the BJP to skip that meeting as it would hand the government the opportunity to say that while it was doing everything to pass the Lokpal Bill in this session, the principal Opposition party did not cooperate.
The report on the Lokpal Bill delivered by the Parliamentary committee late last week has been rejected by Anna as "a betrayal of the people. It says 57 lakh junior bureaucrats and the Prime Minister should not fall under the review of the Lokpal. And the CBI, when investigating charges of corruption, should be supervised by but not accountable to the Ombudsman. Opposition parties too have trashed the draft - most say their MPS gave dissent notes on outstanding issues.
On Anna's stage the Left and the BJP said it was unacceptable to exempt the Prime Minister from investigation while in office, as the government wants, except on matters of national security. "Why should we suffer a corrupt PM for even a day, leave alone five years?" asked the BJP's Arun Jaitley. The parties present also agreed that junior bureaucrats must be accountable to the Lokpal.
Most parties also agreed with Team Anna that as the country's main investigating agency, the CBI must be freed from government control. Parties agreed that how the CBI Director is selected must change, so that the agency does not act "as a lapdog of the government" as the BJD's Pinaki Mishra put it, to settle political scores by the party in charge. Currently, the CBI chief is selected by the government. Team Anna wants the agency to report entirely to the Lokpal. The CBI has said this will defeat the purpose of making it autonomous. The BJP today said the investigative powers must be wrested from the government while handing he agency's administrative control to the Lokpal. The CPI agreed with Team Anna that the CBI should have the Lokpal as its boss.
Privately, sources say, the government will yield to extending the Lokpal's jurisdiction over all bureaucrats and the Prime Minister. Some suggest that Dr Manmohan Singh may offer in Parliament to include his office in the list of those that can be reviewed by the ombudsman - a moment whose PR potential, according to some in his party, has been noted. It is on the matter of the reporting structure of the CBI that the government hopes to build bridges with the Opposition.
Sunday's fast by Anna was his third this year for a Lokpal Bill that delivers an ombudsman agency armed with powers which his team of activists deems essential. The event saw an impressive turnout with nearly 6,000 people turning up. The 74-year-old Gandhian was also testing ground support for the longer hunger strike starting December 27 if the Lokpal Bill is not passed as a law during this Winter Session.