Blame games and defunct Lokayuktas

Gujarat has had no lokayukta for seven years and West Bengal for two; the state govts and Opposition parties are busy pointing fingers at each other

One of India’s most developed states has had no lokayukta for seven years now. Gujarat’s reputation for corruption may be less worrisome than most states, but the non-appointment of a lokayukta by the state government for seven years has come in for widespread criticism. A blame game of sorts between the state government and the Opposition Congress has been going on over for this for some time.

“The name of the lokayukta for the state has been finalised and the Governor of Gujarat has directed the chief minister about the appointment. The government now needs to issue a notification announcing his name. But it is delaying the process without any reason,” Opposition leader Shaktisinh Gohil told Business Standard. (Click here for tables)

Meanwhile, civil society activists continue to agitate about the delay in appointment of a lokayukta. “The state government is deliberately delaying the appointment” says author, film maker and social activist Manishi Jani, who argues that this, taken with the fact that no state human rights commissioner has been appointed, means the state has no official mechanism to receive complaints against the government.

According to Jani, who was actively involved in Nav Nirman (1974) and Jayprakash Narayan (1975) movements, the state government is frightened by the effectiveness of the lokayukta in Karnataka. “Karnataka has an ideal lokayukta legislation and its effectiveness seems to have threatened them (the Gujarat government),” Jani says.

Artist and social activist Mallika Sarabhai says: “Corruption here is rampant, and it is in every government department, right from the level of panchayats. That we don’t have a lokayukta shows the amount of disdain the government has for the people of Gujarat.”

Sarabhai wants to invite anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare to the state to show him the level of corruption that exists in the system. She feels the public distribution system (PDS), the distribution of below-poverty-line (BPL) cards, the entire education system and the need to pay bribe to get decent education, as well as the healthcare system and discrepancies that exist in the area of affordable healthcare, are all affected by the deep-rooted corruption.

“Gujarat is in dire need of a lokayukta, as corruption is rampant here,” says former BJP chief minister Suresh Mehta, who quit the party before the 2007 Assembly polls. “When Gujarat had the lokayukta, government officials paid attention to people’s grievances, fearing action against them if they failed,” he adds.

When asked why the government has not yet appointed a lokayukta, he replies: “The state government fears the appointment of a lokayukta will hit its ‘clean image’. The lokayukta in Gujarat will blow the lid off the rampant corruption in the state.”

Ela Bhatt, founder of Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), says: “There were many visible signs of corruption in the state in the last two years and the growing discontent has started building up. It was Anna Hazare’s fast for changes in the Lok Pal Bill that gave a voice to these unheard people and brought them on one platform of a larger public domain. It gave an impetus to the common man to voice his growing discontent.”

The Left Front’s jewel, West Bengal, like BJP’s ‘model’ state of Gujarat, also has no lokayukta in place. While an Act creating the office of lokayukta was passed in 2001, the office has remained vacant since 2009.

“Lack of political will to fight corruption, along with active political intervention to shield the corrupt has meant that a lokayukta was never supported and the effectiveness denigrated,” said an officer of the erstwhile lokayukta office.

The Left Front’s lack of interest in the office of lokayukta is evident from the fact that even after his delayed appointment in 2006, Justice Samaresh Banerjee was unable to function till July 2007 because he had no office to work from. When his term ended in February 2009, none succeeded him.

During the one-and-a-half years that the Lokayukta was active, the office received more than 2,000 complaints. Of these, 650 were acted upon. Subir Dey, West Bengal state secretary for lokayukta, government and civil society network for good governance, blames not just the government but also the Opposition for the apathy towards the institution of lokayukta.

“In the past five years, of the 262 meetings called in relation to the lokayukta, the Trinamool Congress has not attended even a single one. This is as much to blame as the government shielding the corrupt,” he said.

West Bengal has also climbed on the civil society bandwagon demanding an effective lok pal, but the movement in Bengal remains divided along political party lines, says Dey.