Rahul Gandhi breaks his silence on Anna's fast

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi was to be the beleaguered UPA government’s answer to the growing anger sparked off by Anna Hazare’s 11-day-old fast.

But as Gandhi finished his speech in the Lok Sabha during zero hour, the entire Congress strategy backfired and reduced the chances of Anna ending his fast on Friday.

Within hours, protests were spreading all across Delhi with some protesters heading to Gandhi’s official residence while the opposition led by the BJP sharpened its attack on the government.

Team Anna rejected his suggestions with justice Santosh Hegde calling them a recipe to delay the creation of a strong Lokpal for “another 10 to 15 years”.

Reading out from a prepared four-page note, Gandhi immediately dismissed the idea of a Lokpal and said that he had “serious doubts about the belief” that such an agency could “usher in a corruption-free society”.

According to him, it was “only one element in the legal framework to combat corruption”. This immediately led to howls of protests from the opposition benches and his detractors were quick to point out that Gandhi could have given his prescription to the UPA government in April.

Didn’t the UPA constitute a joint drafting committee during Anna’s fast in April? Where was Gandhi with his suggestions at that time?” a senior BJP leader told DNA.

“If he was so keen, he could have given his inputs to them. What took him so long to come up with these ideas?”

Gandhi’s speech had a broad sweep and brought in issues of land acquisition and the programmes to end poverty along with the seminal topic, ie, corruption.

He was also critical of Anna’s 11-day fast and without naming him stated that “individual dictates, no matter how well intentioned, must not weaken democratic processes.” According to him “this process is often lengthy and lumbering”.

The opposition was not buying into his arguments, and called his speech a “mockery of Parliament”. CPI-M’s politburo member Brinda Karat was livid and said that Gandhi breaking his silence on the issue during zero hour “is irrelevant and an insult”.

According to her this was an indication that the government was not serious about Anna’s fast or ending corruption. “Every political agitation has to be met with concrete proposals that can end it. What Gandhi has done will only make matters worse,” she told DNA.

The BJP was equally dismissive. Leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, said: “Rahul’s speech has closed all doors to end Anna’s fast”.

With her party throwing in weight behind Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill, leader of opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley described the speech as “offering general solutions when there are no solutions to offer”. “That is what Rahul has done,” he said.

Gandhi had also suggested that the current debate on the Lokpal Bill could be “elevated” by looking at ways to make it a constitutional body like the Election Commission of India.

But this could be wishful thinking as such a body would need a constitutional amendment. The UPA was in no position to do so because it lacked a two-third majority in the Rajya Sabha and was certainly in no position to get 50 per cent of the state legislatures essential to vote in such an amendment.

In fact, justice Hegde, who was part of the joint drafting committee from Team Anna, was equally unhappy.

“This bill has been hanging for years. If we are to make it a constitutional authority, it will take another 10 to 15 years. What happens to our immediate concerns to combat corruption?”

But the Congress was in a combative mood after their general
secretary’s speech. The party fielded its Young Turks - Jayanthi
Natarajan, RPN Singh, Sachin Pilot, Sandeep Dikshit, Milind Deora - to attack the opposition.

They said that they would not yield an inch to Team Anna unless the 74-year-old crusader gave a written undertaking to end his fast. Ironically, Gandhi’s first public words on the issue have dimmed the chances of a compromise and handed the UPA a bigger agitation to contend with.