Delhi Congress protests against AAP's Janlokpal Bill outside assembly

NEW DELHI: Delhi Congress on Thursday protested against the AAP government's Janlokpal Bill 2015 outside the assembly . The party also released a white paper where it called the bill as a document that "exposes the lies" about the institution of Janlokpal.

The protesters, led by Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken, marched to the assembly but were detained by police, only to be released later. They shouted slogans against the government and chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, and also burned his effigy for proposing a "weak and toothless" Janlokpal.

"A Janlokpal which was supposed to be an independent institution, a tool for the common man to fight corruption, has been reduced to merely a political puppet by the ruling party," stated the white paper.

Comparing the 2015 draft bill with the 2014 one drawn up by the 49-day Aam Aadmi Party government, the white paper alleged that the very provision (Section 3 of the 2014 bill) for an `inde pendent institution of Jan Lokpal' has been "completely removed".

Congress also alleged that the Janlokpal has been "stripped off " its key power of an independent investigation wing (Section 12(1) of the 2014 bill). Maken chose to call it a "watereddown version" of the previous draft bill.

Moving onto specifics, Congress said the 2014 bill had given the break-up of the financial memorandum to show the cost involved in setting up the Jan Lokpal.This time, there's no such thing. Also, the definition of a `public servant' was elaborately discussed in the 2014 bill; this time, it has been done away with.