What’s common between the Congress, RJD, Amar Singh & BSP? Well, you may say they are some of the most corrupt political units that this country has ever seen – though this truly is one commonality, they now have the dubious distinction of teaming up to put together a weak Lokpal draft via the Parliamentary Standing Committee. This collaboration even between some bitter foes (such as the Congress and BSP) is understandable because of the former commonality they share aptly described in a well-known Hindi saying, “chor-chor mausere bhai” which loosely translates to “all thieves are brothers in arms”! Each of these outfits and/ or their heads/ members have been involved in multiple scams and are being investigated and would do better without a strong Lokpal in place.
These three political parties and one independent MP (Amar Singh, who was Congress’ Man Friday for getting it across the magic number in the no-confidence motion during UPA-1’s tenure) were the only supporters of Standing Committee’s weak Lokpal draft. In the Standing Committee, it seems, even a minority can push through their agenda as these people (Congress, RJD, Amar Singh & BSP) represented only 13 of the 30 members of the Standing Committee whereas majority of members gave dissent on one item or another, yet the Standing Committee adopted a watered down Lokpal! Interestingly, three Congress MPs too gave dissent on the Standing Committee’s version of Lokpal – specifically, on exclusion of Group C employees – Meenakshi Natarajan who is known to be close to Rahul Gandhi suddenly decided to put in the dissent in the last minute!
Clearly, the draft Lokpal adopted by the Standing Committee is a dud – of the three things Prime Minister assured in a letter to Anna back in August, only one has found its way into the Standing Committee’s Lokpal i.e. the Lokayuktas shall be adopted by states – the other two, namely, Citizen’s Charter as well as inclusion of Group C government employees are not part of the Lokpal. Clearly, Team Anna and rest of the nation have strong reasons to have felt cheated. And when Team Anna expressed this in public, the Standing Committee Chairman, Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, “I am not surprised? If any changes including comma or full stop had been made to their Jan Lokpal Bill, they would have reacted in the same way." So, to Mr. Singhvi, non-inclusion of Citizen’s Charter as well as exclusion of Group C employees are “commas” or “full stop” that are of no consequence! Mr. Singhvi, this statement of yours shows your arrogance, a hallmark of Congress!
Also, what Anna said about that someone higher than the Prime Minister has had a hand in dilution of the Lokpal provisions and he has perhaps rightly pointed at Rahul Gandhi for it as Mr. Singhvi doesn’t have it in him to do it on his own and this is evident from the last minute volte-face to exclude Group C employees from the Lokpal ambit. You would now say, if Meenakshi Natarajan who is close to Rahul baba dissented on Standing Committee’s draft, then, how can Rahul baba be behind the dilution of the Lokpal draft. What we have here is perhaps a convoluted political game under play….read on!
There are two possibilities: (1) the government and more so Congress is supremely stupid in not learning from its past hooplas and is ready for full-fledged confrontation again or (2) the government/ Congress is playing a dangerous game to test waters to see if the people will back Team Anna this time around as well and if people rally around Team Anna again – based on this, they will calibrate their response which will be in “proportion” (as we have in many theorems in math and science) with the response Team Anna gets this time around from people. For instance, if the people rally hard around Team Anna, then, the government perhaps will agree to the key recommendations of Jan Lokpal and if people’s response to Team Anna is ok/ good, then the government will throw in a few concessions and if people’s response to Team Anna is lukewarm, then the government will pushback on Team Anna’s demand. The government and more so Congress knows that people’s response to Team Anna’s call shall in all likelihood be ok/ good or massive – in such a situation, to save government’s face the tactic that the Congress would adopt would be for Rahul baba to intervene and save the day by offering these “proportionate” concessions to Team Anna – this would help Congress launch Rahul baba to national political scene as the savior of Jan Lokpal in a run-up to some big elections coming up in 2012 as well as kill Team Anna’s accusations against Rahul and put Team Anna’s movement on the sidelines. Could this be the real reason for the last minute u-turn by the Standing Committee to exclude Group C employees from the ambit of Lokpal/ and note of dissent by Meenakshi Natarajan (Rahul’s close aide) so that it could be offered as concession by Rahul baba when push comes to shove with Team Anna??
So which one of the above two possibilities it is? The next few days will unfold this secret for us…
Regardless, one thing is very clear that this government and particularly Congress is playing games with the country – so, its time for Team Anna to take up the cause again which has started today at Jantar Mantar and this time it will be a all-out showdown as this comedy (or as flavor of the season goes, this Dirty Picture ;)) of a government has gone on for far too long…it is time for change!
These three political parties and one independent MP (Amar Singh, who was Congress’ Man Friday for getting it across the magic number in the no-confidence motion during UPA-1’s tenure) were the only supporters of Standing Committee’s weak Lokpal draft. In the Standing Committee, it seems, even a minority can push through their agenda as these people (Congress, RJD, Amar Singh & BSP) represented only 13 of the 30 members of the Standing Committee whereas majority of members gave dissent on one item or another, yet the Standing Committee adopted a watered down Lokpal! Interestingly, three Congress MPs too gave dissent on the Standing Committee’s version of Lokpal – specifically, on exclusion of Group C employees – Meenakshi Natarajan who is known to be close to Rahul Gandhi suddenly decided to put in the dissent in the last minute!
Clearly, the draft Lokpal adopted by the Standing Committee is a dud – of the three things Prime Minister assured in a letter to Anna back in August, only one has found its way into the Standing Committee’s Lokpal i.e. the Lokayuktas shall be adopted by states – the other two, namely, Citizen’s Charter as well as inclusion of Group C government employees are not part of the Lokpal. Clearly, Team Anna and rest of the nation have strong reasons to have felt cheated. And when Team Anna expressed this in public, the Standing Committee Chairman, Abhishek Manu Singhvi said, “I am not surprised? If any changes including comma or full stop had been made to their Jan Lokpal Bill, they would have reacted in the same way." So, to Mr. Singhvi, non-inclusion of Citizen’s Charter as well as exclusion of Group C employees are “commas” or “full stop” that are of no consequence! Mr. Singhvi, this statement of yours shows your arrogance, a hallmark of Congress!
Also, what Anna said about that someone higher than the Prime Minister has had a hand in dilution of the Lokpal provisions and he has perhaps rightly pointed at Rahul Gandhi for it as Mr. Singhvi doesn’t have it in him to do it on his own and this is evident from the last minute volte-face to exclude Group C employees from the Lokpal ambit. You would now say, if Meenakshi Natarajan who is close to Rahul baba dissented on Standing Committee’s draft, then, how can Rahul baba be behind the dilution of the Lokpal draft. What we have here is perhaps a convoluted political game under play….read on!
There are two possibilities: (1) the government and more so Congress is supremely stupid in not learning from its past hooplas and is ready for full-fledged confrontation again or (2) the government/ Congress is playing a dangerous game to test waters to see if the people will back Team Anna this time around as well and if people rally around Team Anna again – based on this, they will calibrate their response which will be in “proportion” (as we have in many theorems in math and science) with the response Team Anna gets this time around from people. For instance, if the people rally hard around Team Anna, then, the government perhaps will agree to the key recommendations of Jan Lokpal and if people’s response to Team Anna is ok/ good, then the government will throw in a few concessions and if people’s response to Team Anna is lukewarm, then the government will pushback on Team Anna’s demand. The government and more so Congress knows that people’s response to Team Anna’s call shall in all likelihood be ok/ good or massive – in such a situation, to save government’s face the tactic that the Congress would adopt would be for Rahul baba to intervene and save the day by offering these “proportionate” concessions to Team Anna – this would help Congress launch Rahul baba to national political scene as the savior of Jan Lokpal in a run-up to some big elections coming up in 2012 as well as kill Team Anna’s accusations against Rahul and put Team Anna’s movement on the sidelines. Could this be the real reason for the last minute u-turn by the Standing Committee to exclude Group C employees from the ambit of Lokpal/ and note of dissent by Meenakshi Natarajan (Rahul’s close aide) so that it could be offered as concession by Rahul baba when push comes to shove with Team Anna??
So which one of the above two possibilities it is? The next few days will unfold this secret for us…
Regardless, one thing is very clear that this government and particularly Congress is playing games with the country – so, its time for Team Anna to take up the cause again which has started today at Jantar Mantar and this time it will be a all-out showdown as this comedy (or as flavor of the season goes, this Dirty Picture ;)) of a government has gone on for far too long…it is time for change!
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