A day after Anna Hazare broke his 13-day fast for a strong Lok Pal bill, the Congress sought to put up a brave face by advising all parties concerned to “abandon recrimination” and “look ahead with hope”, but the mood in the ruling party was low.
Party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said On Monday, that “recrimination rarely yields creative or positive results”. As chairman of the standing committee on the proposed bill, he made it clear that the pertinent parliamentary panel would take into account “every scrap of suggestion” including the ‘Sense of the House’ resolutions in Parliament and the three sets of Lok Pal bills. The panel, he said, would try to submit its report before the winter session starts in late November this year.
Singhvi, nonetheless, urged all stakeholders to exercise “restraint and reasonableness”, for, “we want the strongest, best Lok Pal possible”. He termed as “the best way forward,” Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s suggestion to lend constitutional backing (which will involve a Constitutional amendment) to the Lok Pal, adding that would not delay a conclusion to the current Lok Pal debate.
The party, on the other hand, was low and felt that while the UPA had won the battle, it had lost the war. Said an ally of the ruling alliance: “We have lost the right to make laws; we have compromised on the process of legislation.”
Party leaders said the Congress had lost the war of attrition against the Hazare group by making “appeal after appeal” to the Gandhian to end his hunger strike. It eventually yielded in the law-making process, by drafting the Sense of the House resolution, which a minister then carried to the Team Anna.
On Monday, the leaders wondered what Hazare’s “fast-unto-death” achieved in concrete terms. Congress sources pointed out that the Hazare group had six demands before the veteran social activist began his fast. The judiciary is still outside the Lok Pal jurisdiction; the prime minister is still out of the purview of the proposed ombudsman’s jurisdiction and so is the conduct of the MPs inside Parliament. What’s more, the states are still noncommittal about having a Lokayukta. (Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Bannerjee has even said her West Bengal does not need a Lokayukta). Further, grievance redressal is still a matter of discussion.
“When you got zero, why did you hold a traumatised nation to ransom by the fast?” asked a senior Congressman about the role of the Hazare supporters. Chimed in the leader of one of the UPA allies: “You kept chiding us, abusing us...but we kept on yielding to you.”
The Congress was clear that there is only one force that has gained from the entire Lok Pal imbroglio – and that too, not politically. “It is the only party that has led the institution of Parliament down the drain,” maintained a leader.
In the Bharatiya Janata Party, the mood was not celebratory either. The saffron party, though, maintained that it scored a political point against the government that the Congress-led UPA “will not forget in a hurry”.
Leaders of the Janata Dal (United), also of the Opposition, said Parliament had suffered a battering. As for Team Anna, privilege motions were filed against supercop Kiran Bedi and actor Om Puri for violating the privileges of Members of Parliament. But it remained to be seen if the notices would stick, as privileges had not been codified.
