The battle between the Congress and the civil society group led by Anna Hazare is expected to intensify on the issue of whether or not the Prime Minister should be brought under the ambit of the Lokpal Bill. A meeting of the Congress Working Committee here on Friday will take a “tough line” on this issue.
The agenda of the CWC meeting is the “current political situation”, AICC general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi said here Thursday.
The party’s stand on this issue could be spelt out in the opening remarks of Congress president Sonia Gandhi. Though the meeting is expected to discuss some aspects of the draft Lokpal Bill prepared by its ministers in the joint drafting committee, the purpose of the meeting is to send a strong message to the civil society group that it cannot dictate terms to the government. “The self-proclaimed representatives of civil society” would be told that they cannot blackmail democratic institutions that are accountable to the Constitution and the people.
The Congress has called the meeting of its highest policy-making body after the issue was discussed by the party core group, comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party chief Sonia Gandhi and the party top brass, twice in the last week. Later it had also held a dinner for the UPA constituents to bring them on board. The government has called an all-party meeting on this issue on July 3.
Friday’s CWC will be the first formal meeting of the apex body to take stock of the political situation after the CWC was reconstituted in March. The CWC has met twice earlier after being reconstituted by Mrs Gandhi, but those were meetings to condole the deaths of party veteran Arjun Singh and Arunachal chief minister Khandu Dorjee.
Friday’s meeting comes when the party is under attack from a belligerent Opposition and sections of civil society over corruption and has launched a countrywide public campaign to “expose” what it calls their “grand design to usurp power through undemocratic means”.
The AICC has dubbed Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev as “masks” of the RSS-BJP.