Moily slams Team Anna, BJP on Lokpal

Kolkata, Jan 3 (IBNS) After the Lokpal fiasco in Parliament, Union Corporate Affairs Minister M Veerappa Moily on Tuesday criticized the Anna Hazare team, claiming that they are not willing to pave the way for an anti-corruption ombudsman bill.

On the sidelines of a conference in the city, Moily said, "Every time they are changing their goal post and this creates much of uncertainity among people."

Slamming the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Moily said they "do not want the bill "and have their own political agenda."

"They keep the confusion floating among the people and create anarchy," said Moily.

He attacked both team Anna and BJP, saying "Anna and BJP should make it very clear what kind of bill they would like to come on."

As of now we accommodated most of the amendments proposed by team Anna from the begining, he claimed.

Moily said, "The beleagured team has proposed 40 principles to drafting committee and we approved 34 in principle and 6 remaining were for consideration in the parliament but they were adamant to accommodate all the principles."

"After that we had sent the bill to standing committee and finally we approved three amendments but still they threatened agitation every now and then."

"In this country of 1.2 billion population, if everybody comes up with their own personal agenda then even after a thousand year no bill can come," he said.

Moily said the BJP was not interested to come up with a corruption watchdog during their regime even though the standing committee led by Pranab Mukherjee had submitted a report in 2001.

Moily said that their main ally Trinmool Congress(TMC)´s only problem is on the weakening of the federal structure under the bill and "we hope it will be sorted out very soon."

On the inclusion of the corporates under the ambit of Lokpal, he said, "The Lokpal bill is meant to deal with various level of corruptions, both at state and centre, but it does not extend beyond the public domain."

Moily hinted that the Company Bill and Pension Bill will come in the Budget session.

(Reporting by Pratik Singh)