The Anna Hazare fast finally ended today after 288 hours. Herculean effort and all for the country. Kudos to the man for his steadfast resolution and for galvanizing the people for this movement.
As per Pranab Mukherjee's opening speech in Parliament yesterday, there were 40 points in Anna Hazare's Jan Lok Pal bill. Out of those 40 points, there was consensus with the government on 20 of them. On 7 points there was consensus with some editing and another 7 points had agreement between the two parties in principle. There were 6 points which faced differences between the two sides. These points were:
1. Bringing the PM under the Lok-Pal.
2. Bringing the conduct of the MPs inside the house under the purview of Lok-Pal.
3. Bringing the judiciary under the purview of Lok-Pal
4. Creating of Lok-Ayuktas (in states) as part of the Lok-Pal bill.
5. Bringing the lower bureaucracy under the Lok-Pal ambit.
6. Creating a citizen's charter for addressing people'e grievances.
After several rounds of discussion between Anna's team and the Govt., and also judging the opinion of the largest opposition party, the Govt. began to concede on bringing the PM under the Lok-Pal ambit.
It was also apparent that conduct of MPs inside the house would remain outside the scrutiny of the Lok-Pal since all parties unanimously opposed it.
As enshrined in our constitution, Judiciary is independent of the Legislature and everyone was of the opinion that however corrupt the judiciary might be, it would be wrong to bring the judiciary under the Lok-Pal for it would make the system devoid of the proper checks and balances that are required. Hence, unanimous opinion was to make the judiciary account through judicial accountability bill.
Point nos. 4,5,6 remained the sticky issues on which there was no considerable agreement and the opinion of the various political parties on this issue was also unclear. Anna wanted a resolution on the sticky points to be passed in Parliament so that the opinion of each of the political parties comes out in the open. Anna had kept the condition of breaking his fast only after the parliament passed a resolution agreeing to consider all the 3 points mentioned above.
After 8 hours of debate in Parliament on the 27th-Aug, it was clear that the Govt and the largest opposition party-BJP along with some of the other parties were in agreement to pass a resolution, agreeing on all the 3 sticky points. The final content of the resolution was presented to Anna Hazare paving the way for the fast to end after a 288 hours marathon.
The draft is now going to go through the Standing Committee before its passed by the Parliament. How long will that take, what would be final contents of the Bill and whether the Govt will rise above petty bickering to present a strong Lok-Pal bill is something that time will tell.
Let people's voices be heard and the country grow stronger into a more vibrant democracy in its true sense.
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