Anna Hazare drives Manmohan Singh to meet President

Even as the Centre is struggling to evolve a consensus on the Lokpal Bill, prime minister Manmohan Singh has called on president Pratibha Patil to brief her on the initiatives taken by his government in the wake of Anna Hazare’s fast-unto-death.

Singh has apprised the president of the steps taken by the government to take action against the corrupt and evolve a consensus on the bill.

The PM drove to Rashtrapati Bhawan after holding parleys with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and some of his cabinet colleagues at 7, Race Course Road, on Friday.

Sources say that there are many in the government who feel that heavens will not fall if a social activist like Anna Hazare is made chairman of the government committee to draft the bill. “If Ratan

Tata can head a government committee and many other industrialists, who face one case or the other, can be part of several government top committees, what’s wrong in Hazare or a civil society member heading a committee to draft the bill. Let the bill be drafted, let it come before the nation, let there be a debate and then it will finally go through the motions in parliament, the president and even scrutinized by the judiciary,” said another source, who participated in the strategy session at the prime minister’s residence.

Even Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee was of the view that this was an avoidable crisis and should have been handled politically rather than on technical grounds. Several meetings have taken place at the PM’s official residence in the past two days to evolve a consensus. Mukherjee maintained the government and civil society should seem to be on the same page.

Since the PM appointed HRD minister Kapil Sibal as the chief negotiator, none of the ministers were willing to say much.