The government, whose representatives went ahead with the meeting, asked the Anna Hazare-led group not to derail proceedings by “raising extraneous issues” and publicly abusing ministers.
“We have been called cheats, frauds, liars, conspirators…. This is not a civil discourse coming from the civil society. We have engaged with other civil society members on different occasions, we never had such an experience. The government has been accused of lying and cheating… we hope this kind of debate will not be conducted in public,” minister Kapil Sibal, one of the government representatives on the committee, told reporters today.
Asked why the government was pleading with the civil society representatives not to abuse ministers, Sibal said: “We are not pleading, don’t misunderstand us.”
Hazare had not gone beyond alleging “dhokadhari” (betrayal) by the government but another member of the group has been accused of using intemperate language against the ministers, including Pranab Mukherjee.
Many in the government have been alarmed by the tendency, pointing out that the ministers were not usurpers but elected representatives of the people.
Sibal insisted that the ministers never commented on the civil society members and the committee chairperson, Mukherjee, dismissed as irrelevant questions that were raised about two members (Shanti Bhusan and his son Prashant Bhushan, who were accused of misconduct and were sucked into the CD controversy).
The civil society group had skipped the meeting to protest the government’s alleged non-co-operation but the timing tied the protest to eviction of Baba Ramdev, whose association with the Sangh parivar is making Anna Hazare and his group squeamish. The civil society group has insisted that the government should allow live telecast of the discussions meant for drafting the bill.
The government, which appeared to be casting itself as a victim, pressed ahead with the meeting to suggest that it is discharging its duties whereas the civil society is staying away.
Sibal said the post-midnight swoop on the Ramlila grounds had nothing to do with drafting the anti-corruption law and trashed the demand for live telecasts of the panel’s meetings as irrelevant to the exercise.
He said the government was committed to tabling the bill in Parliament’s monsoon session irrespective of whether the civil society representatives attended the joint meetings or skipped them.
But the process to draft the bill appeared to have reached a stalemate as the group led by Hazare toughened its stand.
In a letter to panel chairperson Mukherjee, co-chair Shanti Bhushan said he had doubts whether the government was “serious” about enacting the law.
“Recent events since our last meeting don’t inspire any confidence that the government is serious enough about the Lok Pal bill,” the former law minister said.
Bhushan demanded that the government make public its views on several contentious issues before the panel’s next meeting scheduled for June 15. He said the civilsociety members would tomorrow send a list of issues on which they wanted the government to make its views public.
He said the panel’s last meeting had ended in a stalemate and outlined the concerns his group wanted the government to address with urgency so that the draft was complete by the June 30 deadline the joint committee had agreed on.