In a terse reply to a letter from social activist Anna Hazare on the eve of a crucial meeting of the Lokpal Bill joint drafting committee, Congress president Sonia Gandhi made it clear she and her party were strongly in favour of the creation of the Lokpal institution, and also said she “neither supported nor encouraged the politics of smear campaigns”.
Mrs Gandhi also clearly indicated her unhappiness with Mr Hazare for making his communication public, and said she had already spelt out her views. “I received your letter dated June 9, 2011. Since I was not in Delhi I could not reply to your letter. In the meantime, you have also made it public. I will get information in this regard. As far as the questions about the issues raised in the letter are concerned, I have already made my views clear in my letter dated April 19, 2011,” she wrote.
In his letter to the Congress president, Mr Hazare had taken exception to Congress media department head Janardhan Dwivedi describing him as a RSS-BJP “mask”. He had claimed this was part of a Congress “conspiracy” to “defame” him so that he lost popular support.
The joint drafting panel, chaired by Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, is due to meet here yet again on Monday and Tuesday in the backdrop of growing acrimony between its civil society members and the government. One of the key issues over which the two sides have locked horns is whether the Prime Minister should be brought under the Lokpal’s purview.
With the differences between the two sides looking irreconcilable, the government is preparing to hold an all-party meeting, possibly in early July, to break the logjam. This was decided on after a meeting of the Congress core group. The government had earlier sought the views of political parties on the matter, though few responded, most of the others saying they would make their views known when the bill was brought before Parliament.
Mrs Gandhi, who also heads the National Advisory Council, pointed out to Mr Hazare in her letter that the Lokpal Bill was also part of the NAC’s agenda. She wrote: “I believe there is an urgent necessity to combat graft and corruption. You should have no doubt of my commitment in the fight for probity in public life. I strongly support the institution of a Lokpal that is consistent with the practices and conventions of our parliamentary democracy.”
Reacting to the government’s decision to call an all-party meeting, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said Sunday that it should provide the Left parties with a copy of the draft Lokpal Bill, and only after that would these parties be able to give their opinion.
Human resources development minister Kapil Sibal, a member of the joint drafting panel, has said the government is not in favour of including the PM under the Lokpal’s purview. But he added that a PM, after demitting office, should not be exempted from prosecution if necessary.
Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde, also a joint drafting panel member, was quoted by news agencies as saying Sunday that if the Lokpal were to probe a PM after he demitted office, the evidence could be wiped clean. Mr Hegde, a former Supreme Court judge, added it “will not serve the purpose of having an effective investigation because there will not be any trail of the misconduct”.
Mr Hegde will not attend Monday’s session of the joint panel due to some previous commitments, but expects to be present when it meets the next day. His presence on Tuesday is expected to quell rumours that he had developed differences with Mr Hazare after he called on the latter not to go ahead with his proposed hungerstrike from August 16.