3 anti-graft bills address Anna demands

Anna Hazare and his team may find the lokpal bill passed by the Lok Sabha "useless", but the fact is that the three bills Parliament has taken up over the past two days have accommodated many of the campaigner's demands.

Anna Hazare and his team may find the lokpal bill passed by the Lok Sabha "useless", but the fact is that the three bills Parliament has taken up over the past two days have accommodated many of the campaigner's demands.

The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill, Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill and the Whistleblowers Protection Bill are part of the anti-corruption legal architecture that the UPA has been working on.

Hazare has been demanding an overarching lokpal in a single legislation but the government went ahead with three pieces of legislation to check corruption and protect those who expose corruption.

The year started with the Centre setting up a GoM to recommend measures for the creation of a mechanism. And now, the nation is likely to see the bill passed by the end of the year.

The government was spurred into action after Congress president Sonia Gandhi's address at the AICC session at a Delhi suburb last December, where she had exhorted the government to declare a war against corruption in public life.

The government has finally managed to get the lokpal bill passed in the Lok Sabha, though it suffered a setback in its attempt to provide it with a constitutional status.

The BJP, however, does not seem keen to support passage of the anti-corruption bills, possibly apprehending that the government would publicise its achievement in the assembly elections in five states early next year, government sources said.

In the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, the BJP is insisting on separate discussions on the lokpal and whistleblowers bills, making passage of the latter a touch-and-go affair. The Lok Sabha had taken up both bills under the same debate and passed on Tuesday.