Hegde blames all parties for non-passage of Lok Pal in RS

Team Anna member N Santosh Hegde today blamed all political parties for non-passage of Lok Pal Bill in the Rajya Sabha, saying it was "choreographed by everybody".

Political parties did not want to pass the Bill in the just concluded Parliament session. "It was choreographed by everybody... Nobody wanted to Bill to go through," the former Karnataka Lokayukta said.

"According to me, it did not give any indication that any side, anybody wanted the Bill to be passed in the session at all," he said. "Everybody stood to gain...Everybody who is in politics."

In the context of coming Assembly elections, the former Supreme Court Judge said, "Now Congress can say we introduced but they [the opposition] did not allow; some other political party will say that deliberately a weak Bill was introduced and so we opposed it and all."

"Who is the winner? Political parties. I am not saying any single party," he said.

He referred to various issues such as amendments, divergent stand taken by different parties, members talking longer than the time allotted for them and Chairman Hamid Ansari adjourning the House sine die abruptly. "What does an ordinary common man with ordinary common sense make out of this?"

"This [Parliament] is the institution they call supreme institution in law making," Hegde said.