Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani has stated in his blog on Sunday that he found some of the remarks made by Wikileaks editor Julian Assange about Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “highly uncomplimentary.”
Mr Assange, in an interview to The Hindu editor-in-chief N. Ram, stated that “though he didn’t have proof it seemed that the Indian Prime Minister was not personally corrupt, here’s a clear attempt to cover up for the possible corruption of other people”. Mr Assange was replying to a question on the statement of the Prime Minister on Wikileaks cable which has rocked the Parliament in March.
Mr Advani commented “in the context of the Government of India’s reaction to the leaks relating to India, Assange’s comments about the Indian Prime Minister were highly uncomplimentary”.
The senior BJP leader wrote on his blog that before Parliament takes up the Lokpal Bill, which would be drafted by the joint committee involving members from the civil society, the real test of the government’s sincerity about tackling corruption will be what action it takes about the three scams that have already come to light — the 2G spectrum scam, the Commonwealth Games scam and the Mumbai defence land scam. “The country is really angry over corruption,” he said.
It is generally accepted that corruption prevails not because of a lack of necessary laws, but because those in the establishment lack the will to punish the scamsters,” Mr Advani has noted in his blog.
The senior BJP leader has also mentioned that another sore point with the masses is that in recent years, while the more powerful western countries like US and Germany have succeeded in penetrating into the banking secrecy laws of tax havens like Switzerland and getting back their own wealth, the Government of India has made no earnest efforts in this regard. “It has not even ratified the UN Convention against Corruption adopted in 2004. The enormous amount of black money stashed abroad by Indians must be brought back without delay,” he added.