With each passing day, the schism between the government and non-government members of the joint Lokpal Bill drafting committee keeps widening.
Both sides addressed the media in accusatory language on Thursday, in virtually back to back encounters and left no doubt that there was any meeting ground.
“The government has gone back on its words. It does not have the political will to bring a strong Lokpal, and we will have to go back to our fast unto death from August 16, as announced earlier. We are not scared of lathis, bullets, now that we have vowed to fight for this cause to our last breath,” asserted 74-year-old Gandhian Anna Hazare.
His right to information activist colleague Arvind Kejriwal went a step further.” The ministers do not want a strong Lokpal bill, because half of them are aware that they will go to jail, if such a law is passed, and who wants to write his suicide note,” he said.
Quick to hit back, three Union ministers — P Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal and Salman Khurshid struck with equally lethal word-power. “This is no way to negotiate. You cannot threaten that accept our draft or we will go to jail, where we shall get free meals and breakfast. This is not the way dignified people behave,” Sibal said.
Sibal questioned the motives of the non-government members in demanding they should be given audio recordings of the meeting. “Is it their purpose to play these audio tapes on news channels so that they can target the ministers, or do they want a constructive dialogue.”
