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| Politics
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| Anna Hazare threatens to protest |
| Anna Hazare threatens to protest again
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| INDIA
, 16-June-2011
5:28:38 AM |
| The loudest voice in the crusade against corruption, the soft-spoken Anna Hazare, has said he will have to start his Jantar Mantar protest again in view of what he calls the government's u-turn on the Lok Pal Bill.
Mr Hazare said he would begin a fast, much like the one at Delhi's Jantar Mantar two months ago, in support of the demands of civil activists campaigning against corruption. The Government, Mr Hazare said, "is not serious about a corruption-free India...If there had to be two drafts, why have a joint committee?"
The 72-year-old activist was referring to the clean divide down the middle in the joint committee set up to draft the Lok Pal Bill. After seven rounds of talks between members - representing in equal numbers the civil society and the government -- there has been no consensus. So much so that yesterday, after yet another meeting, both sides wrote off the exercise.
The irreconcilable differences between the ministers and the activists were underscored by Kapil Sibal, who said that if no consensus was reached, two versions of the Lokpal Bill would be forwarded to the Cabinet. "Structurally there is no convergence of opinion as to what the Lokpal should be," Mr Sibal, who is a senior minister, said.
An activist member of the committee, Arvind Kejriwal, accused the government of wanting to "kill Lokpal before it is born." "It was not good...nothing came of it," Mr Kejriwal said after the meeting.
The government has been concerned about non-elected representatives actually drafting critical legislation, rather than just contributing with suggestions. That right was hard-fought and won by Anna Hazare, whose nearly week-long hunger fast in April against corruption prompted lakhs of Indian to join his movement - India Against Corruption. The campaign was launched by an NGO; Mr Hazare became its face.
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