Anna Hazare to intensify anti-corruption stir

NEW DELHI: Gandhian activist Anna Hazare vowed to intensify the stir for a stronger anti-graft legislation, saying the threat from corruption was greater than from Pakistan, and that the government is not serious about rooting out corruption. “All government officers must come under the Lokpal.

The corruption that affects the common man is at the lower levels of the government. A person has to go to a government office several times to get a ration card. That is what must change,” Hazare said.

He said what he and his associates are demanding does not amount to a parallel government. Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal had said on Tuesday that there could not be a parallel government outside the government running the country. Hazare said the government was tryimng to dilute the teeth of the Lokpal bill.

He said this cannot be allowed, and that his fast unto death will resume at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on August 16, as announced earlier. “This time, more people will come to Delhi than last time,” he announced.

Sources said the government was considering calling an all-party meeting to discuss the multiple drafts of the Lokpal bill on July 3. The Parliament session will begin on August 1, before which, the drafts will go through a wide-ranging consultative process before going to the Cabinet for approval. “It is clear that the government does not desire to root out corruption,” Hazare said.

He added that the Right to Information Act, which the government had similarly resisted, has helped expose a number of scams, including the Adarsh and the CWG scams. “Now, those corrupt officials need to go to jail, and that is why we need the Jan Lokpal Bill.” Former cop Kiran Bedi, who addressed the media after Hazare, termed the government’s version of the bill a “big hoax”.

“There is nothing in it for the common man. He doesn’t go directly to the joint secretary,” Bedi said. The government side and the civil society activists in the joint drafting panel differed over the inclusion of all government servants under the ambit of the Lokpal. The government version includes only officers of Grade A and above under the Lokpal. Drafting panel member Arvind Kejriwal said the government’s argument that including all civil servants will make it unwieldy is a bogus one.

“The government has included all NGOs under it. In our conservative estimate, that will be more than 20 lakh organizations. The number of civil servants included are only about 58,000. This raises the question who this bill is really targeted at,” Kejriwal said.