Govt engineered high drama in RS on Lok Pal: Team Anna

Team Anna today sought to tear into government on the Lok Pal Bill alleging that it engineered the high drama in Rajya Sabha as it did not have the intention to set up a strong anti-corruption ombudsman.

Putting the blame squarely on the government, Anna Hazare's supporters contended that the government could have passed the Bill if it had accepted the three amendments -- independence of CBI, selection and removal process and delinking Lokayukta -- on which opposition was in agreement.

They chose not to attack opposition on its insistence that Lokayukta in states should not be brought through the Bill, though it is one of their key demands, but insisted that its passage after accepting opposition amendments would have been the first step towards setting up a strong Lok Pal.

"The way the voting in Rajya Sabha was prevented shows that the government was committing fraud after fraud. They say they want to bring a strong Lok Pal but they don't have the intention," Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal told reporters here.

He said the Bill presented in the House was not only weak but also "dangerous" as the ombudsman was fully under the control of government.

In Lok Sabha, he said, 55 amendments were moved and all of them were not uselss. There were good amendments like the one demanding independence for CBI but all of them were defeated by the government "wrongly using its majority", he said.

Noting that the entire opposition was in agreement with three amendments, Kejriwal said if there was voting, it would have been carried out as two of them -- on CBI and selection and removal process -- were critical.

"It would have been the beginning of a strong Lok Pal," he said while another Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan said, "now the fight is for to save democracy."