RJD, SP oppose bill, say it will lead to policing of MPs

A day before the government plans to introduce Lokpal Bill in Parliament, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) voiced thier opposition to the proposed legislation saying it will lead to “policing of MPs”.

Updated on: Dec 21, 2011, 23:45:00 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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A day before the government plans to introduce lokpal bill in Parliament, the Samajwadi Party (SP) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) voiced its opposition to the proposed legislation saying it will lead to "policing of MPs".

SP leader Mulayam Singh Yadav and RJD chief Lalu Prasad made suo motto statements in Lok Sabha accusing the government of sidestepping their suggestions at the all party meeting.

"The government should tell us why our suggestions have not been accepted," Prasad.

Yadav, who first raised the issue, said the government was handing over the powers of the executive to the police under influence of one man (Anna Hazare).

Yadav asked the MPs to consider to whom the government was giving powers. "These powers will go to the police they will not respect us (MPs). Superintendents of police and district magistrates will send us to jail.”

Prasad went to the extent of suggesting that the Congress and BJP should not issue a whip to its MPs on the bill and allow the MPs to vote as per their conscious. "We will not remain silent to an attempt to kill democratic institutions," he said.

Linking the alleged manhandling of a BSP MP by Prime Minister's security personnel with what lokpal, Yadav said "this incident (of manhandling) has happened today. See what happens when Lokpal comes"

According to a report, SP spokesperson Mohan Singh has backed Hazare’s claim that the lokpal draft bill was an empty tin box and accused government of proposing a weak lokpal.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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