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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Anna gets piece of Sonia’s mind

Anna gets piece of Sonia’s mind

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published Published on Jun 20, 2011   modified Modified on Jun 20, 2011

-The Telegraph

 

Sonia Gandhi today sent a terse reply to Anna Hazare’s complaints about a “conspiracy” to defame him, the response setting the tone before a last-ditch bid to resolve differences on the Lokpal bill.

The Congress chief’s reply to a letter from the Gandhian came a day ahead of a scheduled meeting of the joint committee of government representatives and social activists set up to draft the proposed anti-corruption law.

Sonia’s letter mirrored the government’s mood of not giving in to self-styled crusaders at a time both sides have traded barbs over the bill’s ambit.

“I received your letter dated June 9, 2011. Since I was not in Delhi I could not reply to your letter. In the meantime, you have made it public. I will get information in this regard. As far as the questions about the issues raised in the letter are concerned, I have already made my views clear in my letter dated April 19, 2011,” she wrote.

Sonia was responding to Hazare’s letter complaining against Congress media department head Janardan Dwivedi calling him an RSS-BJP “mask”. Hazare had called it a “conspiracy” to defame him and challenged the Congress to prove the allegation.

In her earlier letter, Sonia had said she didn’t support “smear campaigns”.

“As for statements appearing in the media, let me assure you that I do not support nor encourage the politics of smear campaigns,” she had said in her April 19 reply to Hazare, who had raised similar issues.

In the letter, the Congress president had underlined her support for a Lokpal. “I believe there is an urgent necessity to combat graft and corruption. You should have no doubt of my commitment in the fight for probity in public life. I strongly support the institution of a Lokpal that is consistent with the practices and conventions of our parliamentary democracy,” Sonia had said.

Hazare has declared he would start a second round of fast from August 16, though the plan has sprung a divide in his camp. The government has said it would call an all-party meeting next month before Parliament’s monsoon session in a bid to get the political class by its side.

A key point of conflict between the Congress-led government and the civil society members is on bringing the Prime Minister within the purview of the proposed anti-graft authority. The government also wants to keep the higher judiciary and MPs’ behaviour inside Parliament outside the Lokpal’s ambit.

Kapil Sibal, one of the government representatives on the drafting committee, had said the Prime Minister “should not be covered” under the Lokpal. “But at the same time,” he added, “we want to make sure that if he demits office, he should not be exonerated from prosecution.”

Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hegde, a member of the panel, said it “will not serve the purpose of having an effective investigation” if the Prime Minister was kept out of the Lokpal’s purview till he demitted office. There “will not be any trails of the misconduct”, he told PTI in an interview.

He said evidences could be “swept clean” and there could be arguments that it was an “error of judgement” on the Prime Minister’s part and not a case of corruption.

The former Supreme Court judge said the Constitution never “contemplated” that anyone, except the President, should be kept out of the purview of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The Telegraph, 20 June, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110620/jsp/nation/story_14135594.jsp


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