Consensus eludes Lok pal bill drafting committee

After a prolonged war of words in the public, differences between government and civil society representatives in the 10-member drafting committee meeting today ended all chances of a consensus on the Lok Pal Bill.

According to sources within the government, the two sides have now decided to present two separate versions – one drafted by government representatives and the other by the civil society members – before the Cabinet. The final draft adopted in the Cabinet will then be tabled in Parliament.

Sources said the UPA ministers were adamant and refused to bring the Prime Minister or his office under the purview of the anti-corruption bill. Although both sides have agreed to meet again on June 20 and 21, the meetings are expected to focus on finalising how the different versions of the draft bill will be incorporated.

A Finance Ministry official said that though Anna Hazare and his team had boycotted the earlier meeting to protestagainst the police action against Ramdev, no one mentioned the incident at today’s meeting. “This clearly showed the underlying tension between the Ramdev faction and the Hazare group of the civil society representatives.”

After the meeting civil society members said the government was adamant and had no intentions of ending corruption. “It seems the government had already decided its action even before the meetings started. While we were giving suggestions and wanted a debate, the ministers only told us about what they wanted to do. The government does not want to end corruption. There is no consensus on many issues,” said civil society members Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan.

“There are clear areas of strong differences. The draft bill will have two versions on the point of differences which will be presented to the Cabinet. We don’t want civil society members to feel that their opinions and issues raised by them were not given importance,” said Kapil Sibal, HRD minister and a panel member.

Sources said as soon as the meeting started, Sibal raised the heat by taking on the civil society members seeking an explanation for calling government representatives of the committee “cheats, fraud and conspirators”. The civil society members explained that the remarks were targeted at some other Congress leaders who were constantly attacking the civil society but the ministers were not convinced. Charges and counter charges followed and soon Finance Minister and chairman of the committee Pranab Mukherjee lost his cool when he was asked why he had told a Kolkata press conference that the bill might not be passed in Parliament: “Yes. I stand by what I said. As a Congress leader, I can only be responsible for the 207 Congress members in the Lok Sabha. I can’t dictate what members of other political parties would do.”

The meeting ended with government representatives refusing to entertain all recommendations by the civil society members.