Lokpal Shame In Parliament

An unprecedented drama that went uptill midnight on Thursday in the Rajya Sabha shamefully succeeded in stalling the controversial Lokpal Bill. The Upper House of Parliament saw tearing up of a copy of the Lokpal Bill after snatching it from the hands of union minister V Narayansamy by RJD MP Rajneeti Prasad while his party supremo watched gleefully from the visitorz gallery at 11.57 pm. Another union minister Ashwani Kumar was seen only reluctantly trying to prevent Rajneeti Prasad from doing this giving speculation that the drama was orchestrated by the UPA to avoid an embarrassment on the floor of the house after it failed to muster the required numbers in its favour in the Rajya Sabha to get the Lokpal Bill passed... The opposition has made the same charge with BJP saying that the government is in hopeless minority and has lost moral right to rule.

Amid the din and oppositionz persistent demand for a ruling from Chairman Hamid Ansari on the continuance of the last sitting of the winter session, the Rajya Sabha was adjourned sine die purportedly against the majority opinion in the upper house. At the end, the Lokpal Bill could not be put to vote in the Rajya Sabha and the anti-graft bill hangs in balance with uncertainty reigning supreme.

LOKPAL: A JOURNEY


The Lokpal bill has a very intriguing of its failure in getting enacted. It was first introduced in the Lok Sabha in 1968 when Indira Gandhi was the prime minister. But, it could not be turned into an Act as the fourth Lok Sabha was dissolved. At that time, it had neither members of Parliament nor the prime minister under its ambit. The Lokpal bill was then introduced in 1971 again under Indira Gandhiz prime ministership, in 1977 under Morarji Desai as prime minister, in 1985 when Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister, in 1989 when VP Singh was the PM, in 1996 when HD Deve Gowda was the prime minister, in 1998 and 2001 when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the PM and in 2008 and last time on December 20th this year under the prime ministership of Manmohan Singh. Of all these, only VP Singh, HD Deve Gowda and Atal Behari Vajpayee agreed to put the prime minister under the ambit of the Lokpal. However, the final outcome has remained same in past 43 years and the bill is hanging fire.

Although this bill has been Achilles' heel for successive governments for decades, it is only since April this year that the Lokpal became a part of the national discourse, when a retired soldier turned social activist, Anna Hazare undertook a fast unto death at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. He and his team proposed Jan Lokpal Bill constituting the institution of Ombudsman vested with powers to investigate and incarcerate corrupt officials without government or Parliament's permission. What followed later was a confrontation between Team Anna and the UPA government and formation of joint drafting committee.

The experiment ended in a failure as the government shot down most of the recommendations by the civil society. Anna Hazare accused the government of being non-serious on the issue of fighting corruption. Anna Hazare embarked on yet another hunger strike on August 16. Eleven days later on 27th august , he ended his fast after government conveyed sense of Parliament vaguely agreeing to the basic demands of Anna Hazare.

The Lokpal bill was reworked upon by the standing committee where as many as 16 of the 30 members submitted their dissent note. The Bill was introduced in Parliament on December 20 and the session was extended for three days from December 27 to 29th for discussion and passing of the anti-graft bill. But, what happened on Thursday night during the midnight drama again puts the parliamentarians in dock with an automatic question, whether the elected representatives are serious to fight graft?

Food Security Bill: How Secure Is It?

The Food Security Bill is now before Parliament. The Bill aims at providing food and nutritional security to the millions of Indians. In spirit, the legislation is well aimed at wiping out hunger from the face of the second most populace nation, which has the highest number of hungry, malnourished, under-nourished population in the world. The objective of the NAC-prepared Bill is also noble because India still suffers from most basic type of poverty with almost 74 percent of children being anaemic. This bill may help fighting this. But, the food bill has raised many an eyebrow of experts.

The critics claim that the food security bill is the worst kind of pork barrel populism. The timing of the food bill suits the political ambitions of the ruling UPA with important assembly elections just round the corner and a general election is just over 2 years from now and for which tempo has started to build up. At this time, opposition is coming particularly from those states which either have a long way to go for the assembly polls or are comfortably placed vis-à-vis their political battle with the Congress or its partners in the UPA. Notable among the opposing states are Tamil Nadu under AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaa, Odisha under BJD chief Navin Patnaik and Bihar under JD-U leader Nitish Kumar. The states are not ready to cough up for a project that the UPA or the Congress would take credit for in future polls.

The food security bill which aims to cover nearly three-fourth of the rural population and almost half of the urban has some problems. First, it just extends existing programmes, which have proved beyond doubt too inefficient and corrupt to fill the empty stomach of our impoverished populace as well as the fattened bellies of greedy politicians and officers.

Another problem with the food security bill is that there is a question of affordability with states making it clear that they would not spare their funds for a populist programme of the Congress party being thrust upon them at the behest of party president Sonia Gandhi, under whose leadership, the National Advisory Council prepared the Food Security Bill and the UPA is trying to implement. Also, the states are wary of being this pet programme of Sonia Gandhi being put into place totally on central finance. This is the reason why Jayalalithaa has said that the welfare schemes should be left to the respective state governments citing federal nature of Indian polity/ Constitution. No matter, if the states conveniently ask for similar schemes if those suit them.

The UPA's food bill plan will push the food subsidies to over Rs 94 thousand crores per year. Centre's finances are already in bad shape and the central government can't afford just to keep spending as it would further not only burden the state exchequer but will also help prices going further north. This may, in turn, put pressure on the UPA government, which has itself been advocating cut in subsidies of all kinds including those being given on food items through Public Distribution System. But, at the same time opting for economic prudence by cutting down subsidies would provide cash to the UPA government, but might cost votes, which the Congress may not be prepared for. So, the Food Security Bill remains contentious on both accounts of security-- one of hungry millions and also of the Congress-led UPA government.