Differences persist, but meet cordial: Team Anna

Civil society activists, led by Gandhian Anna Hazare, on Monday described the meeting with Government representatives for drafting the lokpal bill as "cordial", but said a few "differences persisted" between the two sides.

Civil society activists, led by Gandhian Anna Hazare, on Monday described the meeting with Government representatives for drafting the lokpal bill as "cordial", but said a few "differences persisted" between the two sides.

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"We had two new issues that were discussed. One was the appointment of the lokpal selection committee and the other was the removal of the Lokpal," lawyer and Hazare confidante Prashant Bhushan told reporters.

"The differences are still persistent, but the atmosphere of the meeting was quite cordial," added Bhushan.

The meeting started Monday 11am and went on till 2pm.

"We have proposed a broad-based committee consisting of non-political and independent people in our draft of the proposed bill while the government's version has mainly political people in the appointment committee," said Arvind Kejriwal, civil society member in the lokpal draft panel.

"There were a lot of disagreements between both the sides, but all of them were discussed in an elaborate way," Kejriwal said.

Another meeting is scheduled Tuesday. "Both the sides will place their versions of the draft to each other. The draft that will be presented to the cabinet will have points from both the drafts," added Bhushan.

Besides Gandhian Anna Hazare and Prashant Bhushan, other civil society activists on the panel are Arvind Kejriwal, Santosh Hegde and Shanti Bhushan.

The government is represented by cabinet ministers Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram, M Veerappa Moily, Salman Khurshid and Kapil Sibal.