In a desperate effort to secure the passage of the Lokpal law in the Lok Sabha, the Congress party changed tack mid-stream and amended its position of the bill.
Remarkably, intimations of change in the official stance occurred hours after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intervention in the Lokpal debate in the Lower House. In the course of this he had strongly backed all aspects of the bill, including the one that seems to regional parties a transgression of the federal spirit.
Now that the Lok Sabha has cleared the bill, all eyes are on the Rajya Sabha where the government is not out of the woods. In the Upper House, the UPA is short of majority. But with all coalition allies on board, it has a better chance to bridge the gap. All eyes will be on the concessions it offers, especially to the smaller parties who might help cover the slack, including by inducing walkouts.
However, there appeared little chance that the government would accept the amendments of the BJP, which has followed the Anna Hazare’s line in toto on condemning the bill for not bringing the CBI under the Lokpal.
This would make it impossible for the bill to be passed by a two-thirds majority, which is needed to give it constitutional status.
But it is now becoming clear that the BJP remains the only major party that derides the Lokpal bill moved by the government as “weak”, mimicking the language of the Hazare campaign.
The contradiction in the BJP-led NDA is underlined by the Shiv Sena’s opposition to the Lokpal law in principle.