Khaleequr Rahman: Congress Passes Lokpal bill and opposition defeats...

Khaleequr Rahman: Congress Passes Lokpal bill and opposition defeats...: Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayanasamy today moved the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha. While moving the Bill, Na...

Congress Passes Lokpal bill and opposition defeats the constitutional status

Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayanasamy today moved the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha.  While moving the Bill, Narayanasamy said that the UPA was committed to tackling corruption.

Shri V.Narayana Swamy

The credit for the Lokpal Bill goes to the UPA Government.  For 40 years, discussions on Lokpal Bill have been held for a bill to help citizens who have many complaints. In April 2011, civil society organizations said Lokpal Bill should come as soon as possible. So, Government tried new experiment - to get views of civil society like Anna Hazare and others. So Finance Minister and others worked with them on Lokpal Bill. Both sides deliberated on it. Finally the UPA government under the sincere leadership of Smt.Sonia Gandhi ji introduced the Bill in Lok Sabha yesterday and the bill was passed.

The Lokpal will have chairperson and eight members. This bill has not been brought all of a sudden. Many deliberations were held. Two meetingswere held with the political parties. They were taken into confidence.  The congress felt that the minorities also should be given their due representation in the Lok pal and here was lot of demand for reservation for SC/ST, women, minorities. Therefore it has also been incorporated in the  bill.  On the issue of Prime Minister, he represents 120 crore population of India and he is the face of our country when he goes abroad.  But unfortunately, there was demand for t from some circles that PM also should be brought under the ambit of the Lokpal. PM also said he should be brought under ambit of Lokpal. So he is covered with five exclusions for matters like national security, atomic energy and space.

The complaints against PM were to be sanctioned by 3/4 majority of Lokpal, but now it has been changed to 2/3 majority. The Lokpal Bill was passed in Lok Sabha on Tuesday to create an anti-corruption body. However, it failed to give it a Constitutional status. It failed mainly because of the parties like Samajwadi, BSP,RJD and even some of the members of the BJP as they stayed out of parliament and were not present when the bill came up for passing. The Constitution (116th Amendment) Bill was defeated by a determined Opposition.  A Constitution Amendment Bill to be passed should have more than 50 per cent of the members of the House present and of them, two-third support is mandatory.

This raises many questions about the seriousness of the parties like SP, BJP and the BSP. It has been proved once again that it is only the congress party who is serious and determined in tackling the issue of corruption and when it came to actually getting the constitutional status, these so called parties abstained from attending the parliament and their absence resulted in the bill getting defeated.



  

Mohd.Khaleequr Rahman