New Delhi: A day after the fate of the much-debated Lokpal Bill hung in balance after it became a victim of wrangling between the treasury and opposition benches, the BJP today apprehended that the Government wanted to ‘dump’ the Bill and alleged that the Government was refusing to talk to its own allies to support the Bill.
Addressing a joint news conference, Leaders of Opposition Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley said the Government choreographed the trouble in the House using one of its allies to disturb the House last night. The Government, which is bereft of a ‘simple majority in the Lok Sabha’, had no right to govern even for a day, they
alleged.
The Government wants to do nothing but the dump the Lokpal Bill or it would have taken the parties into confidence if it was really sincere about the passage and extended Rajya Sabha with the sense of the House, a prevailing practice when the law-making bodies run out of time. The ruling combine could even have referred
to a Select Committee of Parliament. “Even this was not done,” they charged.
Mrs Swaraj, at one stage, said the Government bulldozed through the Bill in the Lower House where it had the numbers but in Rajya Sabha where it lacked the numbers, it had used an ally (RJD) to disturb proceedings. As far as BJP was concerned, it had opposed a weak Lokpal in the LS as also in the upper House. It was coalition ally, Trinamool Congress (AITC) which supported the Government in the LS and opposed it in the RS.
“The Government is blaming opposition because they know that their strengh is hollow but display an ego of a government having a full majority,” she remarked.
At no point of time the UPA Government could show majority numbers in the House in the entire session, Ms Swaraj added. (KMW News)
