West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is also chief of the UPA government's largest ally, Trinamool Congress (TMC), on Tuesday extended her support to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the Lokpal issue echoing his words that parliamentary procedures should be followed in the matter.
“The issue has not been discussed as yet. Let the matter come to the Loksabha. All the parties will give their opinion then. Before that why are they (Anna Hazare-led civil society) are talking like this?” Banerjee said, adding that her party would give its view over the inclusion of the PM and higher judiciary under the Lokpal purview, once the matter will be taken up in the parliament for discussion.
“I think our PM is an honest man. I do not think any of our PMs like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Rajiv Gandhi , Deve Gowda, Inder Kumar Gujral were corrupt. One can raise issue like this, but must be in a constructive way,” she said.
Criticising the Anna Hazare-led movement, she said, “In a democratic set up every one has the right to protest. We are also totally against the corruption. But I want to say one thing only one point programme can not solve this problem. Their only issue is to bring PM and Supreme Court judges under the Lokpal.”
Banerjee also questioned the civil society for being silent over the black money issue, “Why are they silent about black money? We can dominate the world if we get back the black money stashed abroad. The government should think over this and introduce a legislation so that this can be done,” Banerjee said.
She also said that the country needs administrative, judicial and electoral reforms to eradicate poverty. “Corruption should be eradicated from the grassroots level. There is no system to carry out the vigilance work. Institution like CBI and CID are not equipped enough to tackle the issue.We need administrative, judicial and electoral reforms.”
Speaking on electoral reforms, she said, “People raise money in the name of election to enrich the party fund. There should be a system where every party will announce their candidates and Election Commission will bear the expenses.The commission's infrastructure needs to upgraded for this.”