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Government embarrassed, bill for statutory status for Lokpal
defeated
Wednesday December 28, 2011 05:58:20 PM,
IANS
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New Delhi: In a major
embarrassment to the United Progressive Alliance, a combined
opposition Tuesday defeated the government move to provide
constitutional status for the newly voted Lokpal institution.
The suggestion for providing constitutional status for Lokpal was
made in the Lok Sabha in the monsoon session by Congress general
secretary Rahul Gandhi and was pressed on by the government led by
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
When the constitutional amendment bill in this regard was put to
vote in the Lok Sabha, the government failed to muster enough
strength required to get the bill passed, resulting in Speaker
Meira Kumar announcing that the bill now stood "infructuous".
The government did not have the required strength in the Lok Sabha
-- 50 percent of the total strength and two-thirds of the total
members present in the house -- resulting in the opposition taking
advantage of its vulnerability.
All the clauses of the bill were negated with the combined
opposition -- the NDA, Left parties, AIADMK, Biju Janata Dal and
others -- seizing the opportunity to embarrass the government.
Soon after the bill was defeated, Finance Minister Pranab
Mukherjee told the house that the government's intention was to
give constitutional status to the Lokpal institution, which the
Lok Sabha voted only minutes earlier, but the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) had defeated the purpose of the bill.
"We knew, we did not have the requisite numbers. It is a sad day
for democracy, it is a sad day for Lokpal institution. The BJP
defeated the purpose of the bill," he said.
The BJP benches immediately protested with prominent members of
the party like Yashwant Sinha, Ananth Kumar, Gopinath Munde and
Murli Manohar Joshi, objecting Mukherjee's statement and blaming
the UPA for not mobilising enough numbers.
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