New Delhi:
As the blame-game over the midnight mayhem in Parliament over the Lokpal Bill continues, the main opposition party, the BJP, has said that it would have supported the Constitution Amendment Bill in the Lok Sabha had the government clarified on the contentious issue of the Lokayuktas.
The Constitution Amendment Bill has become a sore point in ties between the government and the opposition ever since it fell through in the Lok Sabha, courtesy vehement opposition by the BJP as well as several other parties to certain clauses in the proposed legislation, which also includes the Lokayuktas. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) says that the current bill calls for the creation of Lokayuktas in states on the lines of the Lokpal - the national anti-graft ombudsman - which is in violation of the federal structure of polity as provided in the Constitution.
Speaking to NDTV, Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley said that the BJP would have voted in favour of the amendment that would have accorded the Lokpal a constitutional status provided the Congress would have made suitable changes to the Bill in order for states to reserve the right to determine whether or not to adopt a model legislation on the Lokayuktas.
"If they were to clarify in that constitutional amendment that let the Lokayuktas be created by the Centre and the states and put this Article 252 reference either in bracket or under 252, this phrase is added, we were ready to support the constitutional amendment", Mr Jaitley said.
He also rubbished the Congress' claims that the BJP killed the constitutional amendment bill simply because it was Rahul Gandhi's idea. The Congress General Secretary had mooted the idea of granting the Lokpal a constitutional status and had dubbed it as a "game-changer". Mr Jaitley said that the real game-changer lay in an independent Lokpal.
"The game with regards to the Lokpal does not change just by giving it a constitutional status...the game changes by making its appointment independent, by making its investigations independent and by giving it proper jurisdiction...unfortunately, when he (Rahul) made that statement, he thought that the game will change only if you have a constitutional status and a Lokpal which is government-controlled...unfortunately, that was a mistaken impression...this debate has travelled far beyond just the optics of Lokpal," Mr Jaitley said.
The Congress, meanwhile, has slammed the BJP for doling out "spurious" and "hypocritical" excuses for rejecting the Constitution Amendment Bill. "BJP, in writing, said in standing committee that they support constitutional status without conditions...in Lok Sabha they rejected it simply because the author was Rahul Gandhi", Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said. Reacting to Mr Jaitley's "game-changer" remark, Mr Singhvi said, "BJP is in it for politics...they are in it for short term talking points."