It is a defeat of an arrogant
govt, says BJP
Charging the government with “orchestrating”
the events yesterday to avoid voting on the Lokpal Bill in Rajya Sabha, Jaitley
said, “Government created disturbance with the help of a friendly party to run
away from vote…If government shies away from voting on amendments it does not
want, it is a sad day for Parliamentary democracy.”
BJP choreographed fiasco on Lokpal Bill in RS, says Govt
Government today projected the BJP as the
villain in Rajya Sabha’s failure to pass the Lokpal Bill yesterday and accused
it of choreographing the fiasco but refrained from blaming key UPA constituent
Trinamool Congress which had moved several amendments.
Source: www.firstpost.com, December 30, 2011
“A politician is a man who will double cross that
bridge when he comes to it.”~Oscar Levant
After the Loksabha
passed the Lokpal bill, we actually believed that not all politicians were bad,
not everything was as bleak as we thought, and that this country still had
hope. But the charade of the Loksabha debate and the subsequent passing of the bill, awaiting ratification
in the Rajyasabha, was just a ruse to fool the common man.
Why would politicians
want to get off the gravy train? Plundering national wealth is a guaranteed privilege
to our elected representatives. Our parliamentarians may wax eloquent, denigrating
corruption in their debates, but they will fight tooth and nail any law that
takes away that privilege.
The
government, riddled with controversy over controversy, and having a large
number of corruption charges against its ministers, certainly did not want the
Lokpal. It, quite clearly, had a pre-conceived plan to create a stalemate.
Projecting an image of a party committed to the anti-graft bill, its floor
management in the Loksabha was impeccable. Yet, it used its allies like
Trinamool Congress and outside supporters like RJD to create chaos
in the Rajyasabha to stall the crucial legislation.
The opposition had
a two pronged strategy. They took a stand that the Lokpal, as proposed by the
government, was weak, and asked for 180 amendments. The obvious ruse was to
stall the bill from being passed. And if it did get passed, well, they could
get political mileage by supporting the Anna Hazare movement with full fervour,
blaming the government.
It is one of the
greatest blunders of belief that any political party ever wants the Lokpal. Over
the years, every ruling party made sure that this Bill did
not see the light of the day, whether it was the government of VP Singh, HD
Deve Gowda, IK Gujral, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and now, Manmohan Singh.
© Sujata Khanna. All rights reserved.
