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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | BJP roots for Jan Lokpal in U-turn by Radhika Ramaseshan

BJP roots for Jan Lokpal in U-turn by Radhika Ramaseshan

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published Published on Aug 26, 2011   modified Modified on Aug 26, 2011

The BJP today rooted for Anna Hazare’s version of the Lokpal bill, two days after it distanced itself from the draft, the somersault coming in a letter the party’s president wrote to the fasting activist.

“We have always been and are for a strong Lokpal,” Nitin Gadkari said in his letter. “For that to happen, (the) BJP accepts your Jan Lokpal bill to be the basis for a strong and effective Lokpal to be put in place at the earliest without getting into procedural wrangles.”

The letter was written and despatched this evening by Gadkari’s colleagues Jagat Nadda and Vinay Sahasthrabuddhe hours after Hazare associate Arvind Kejriwal had publicly challenged the BJP to spell out its stand on the Jan Lokpal bill.

A meeting of the BJP’s core committee that Gadkari chaired tonight placed its stamp of approval on his Jan Lokpal pitch. L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley were among those who attended the meeting.

“Our demand is firstly the government should drop its Lokpal bill,” spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said. “The bill that replaces it should reflect the general premises and sentiments of the Jan Lokpal bill.”

Bolstered by the BJP’s turnaround, Hazare’s associates Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan and Kiran Bedi called on the BJP leaders late tonight at Advani’s residence. Sources said they expected to be reassured that the BJP would not veer from the stand it fashioned today when the Lokpal issue is debated in Parliament tomorrow.

The sources cited several reasons for Gadkari’s somersault. They said he was pressured by the RSS and a section of the BJP to take a more strident stand on Hazare’s fast after leaders like Yashwant Sinha and Shatrughan Sinha voiced concerns over the party yielding its political turf to “civil society” for “want of clarity” on the issue.

The Sangh and the BJP dissenters, the sources said, felt that the parliamentary strategists were going “soft” on the government. A national executive member, close to the RSS, said he was “unhappy” with Lok Sabha Opposition leader Sushma readily associating the BJP with the Prime Minister’s statement on the Hazare episode this morning.

He wondered why the usually combative Sushma “allowed” Manmohan Singh to get away with his dare to the BJP to nail him on personal corruption.

“Nobody from our party suggested he was under a cloud. But as the UPA government’s watchman, he slept through the 2G, CWG and other big scams and this point was not made by Sushma,” he said.

It is learnt that when Hazare brought up the BJP’s “fuzziness” with Gadkari’s colleagues, he was told that Sushma’s brief address at the all-party meeting Singh had convened yesterday was in sync with the party’s stand of supporting the Jan Lokpal bill.

Gadkari’s letter said Sushma had demanded that the government withdraw its Lokpal bill and supplant it with a more powerful one.

To reinforce the message of “solidarity” with Hazare, Gadkari today floated a new outfit called the Yuva Vahini, which drew its cadres from the party’s youth wing.

The cadres not only replenished the crowd at Ramlila Maidan but also picketed the Prime Minister’s residence.

The sources, however, conceded that they had fewer differences with the government’s version than with the Jan Lokpal bill.

The Telegraph, 26 August, 2011, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110826/jsp/nation/story_14426851.jsp


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