No party wanted Lokpal Bill to be passed in RS: S Hegde

Team Anna member N Santosh Hegde today blamed all political parties for non-passage of Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha, saying it was "choreographed by everybody".

Political parties did not want to pass the bill in the just concluded Parliament session. "It was choreographed by everybody...Nobody wanted to bill to go through," the former Karnataka Lokayukta told PTI here. "According to me, it did not give any indication that any side, anybody wanted the bill to be passed in the session at all," he said. "Everybody stood to gain...everybody who is in politics."

Putting up a brave front after it failed to muster the numbers in the Rajya Sabha, the government on Friday said the Lokpal Bill will "definitely" be brought before the Rajya Sabha during the Budget session even as Congress leader Digvijay Singh defended the move saying extension of the House last night was not possible.

"Definitely we will bring it in March in the Budget session...we have to study the 187 amendments brought by Opposition parties as most are overlapping. Some amendments relate to only a part of a clause and not the entire clause, some demand removing the entire part of the bill," minister of state for personnel V Narayanasamy said.

He said after going through the amendments, the government will take a call on what to accept and what to reject and get back to the Opposition parties.

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A political war broke out between government and Opposition on Friday over Rajya Sabha's failure to pass Lokpal Bill yesterday, with both sides accusing each of carrying out "well choreographed" chaos to scuttle it. 

Under attack that it ran away from a vote because of lack of majority in the House, the government launched a media blitzkrieg in which BJP was the main target and painted as "villain" of the midnight drama. 

The government underlined that the bill was "alive" and would be taken up in the Budget Session and get it passed after working with parties. 

In all the charges and counter charges, the government sought not to annoy its ally Trinamool Congress, which had ganged up with the Opposition and declared that it would vote against the provisions relating to Lokayuktas. 

Chidambaram went a step further to say that Trinamool's concerns could be addressed by refining the provisions. In its barrage, the BJP and the Left accused the government of "subterfuge and sabotage" through its allies and friendly parties, mainly the RJD. 

Seeking to bring Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in their line of fire for "keeping silent" during the episode, Leaders of Opposition in both the Houses Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj said the government has lost the right to continue in office after the defeat in both the Houses and face fresh elections. 

The government fielded four of its senior ministers, P Chidambaram, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Ambika Soni, to launch a scathing attack on BJP. "The BJP had no intention to pass the Bill. So they hit upon an ingenous devise to move 187 amendments, many of them contradictory and many of them cannot be reconciled in a few minutes," Chidambaram told a joint press conference. 

"The cat was out of the bag when the Leader of Opposition said at the start of the debate yesterday that we are confident that three crucial amendments will be passed. How did he know? So they must have got into an understanding with some other parties," Chidambaram said. 

Claiming that the government had done everything possible, he wondered how a minister could accept amendments against his wish and "down the throat of the government. How can he say 'the bill as amended (by opposition) be passed'?" 

Replying to questions on the impact of the development on the poll prospects of Congress, Soni said the party would use the issue during the campaign in the upcoming Assembly elections in five states. 

In the Lok Sabha, Chidambaram said, the government "bent over backwards" to accommodate critical amendments of even the Opposition but was surprised when the same parties behaved differently in the Rajya Sabha, bringing 187 amendments.