No delay in Lokpal, promises Khurshid

Salman Khurshid

New Delhi, Oct. 18: Union law minister Salman Khurshid today said the Lokpal will be a constitutional authority and that this will not delay the bill.

“Is it going to delay Lokpal’s creation? My answer is no, there will be no delay and we will work hard to ensure there’s no delay. We cannot say with absolute certainty that it will be passed in Parliament at this time, on this day,” Khurshid said, but stressed the Lokpal bill will be passed in the winter session of Parliament.

A section of civil society had argued that the idea mooted by Rahul Gandhi in his zero hour speech in Parliament was aimed at buying time.

The process involves a constitutional amendment that will have to be passed by both Houses of Parliament by a majority of the total members and two-third of the members present and voting in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

By tabling a bill, that would purportedly enshrine elements from the Jan Lokpal bill, the government’s tactic was to put the onus for its passage on the Opposition, sources said.

Hinting that the BJP was unsure which way it would go — despite its assurance of support to Hazare and his team for their Jan Lokpal bill — he said with a trace of irony: “I don’t want to run the BJP down. When they were in consultation (with the government), they were against us talking to Hazare and yet they wanted a strong Lokpal. You have to be stupid for not saying the same things inside and outside.”

Khurshid’s allusion to the “contradictions” in the BJP was an indication that the government hoped to play on the cracks within the Opposition on Lokpal and see the bill consigned to uncertainty like the women’s reservation bill.

By doing this, sources said, the Congress would have delivered on its “assurance” to Anna Hazare and it could blame the Opposition “disarray” for holding up the bill.

Khurshid stressed that while the “Lokpal moment” as an idea and as a law had arrived, thanks to Hazare’s “contribution”, its “real test” was awaited on the floor of Parliament.