New Delhi, January 02: Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Water Resources Pawan Kumar Bansal criticised the BJP on Sunday over its stand on the Lokpal Bill. He said the Opposition party could rather see the country fail than the government succeed.
He said the criticism over conducting the proceedings in the Rajya Sabha was motivated criticism. Bansal was in the city in connection with the Mayoral elections in the Municipal Corporation.
The minister said there were 187 amendments suggested in the Lokpal Bill.
“Some of these were contradictory. The government requires time to go through these. These will be analysed and then the Bill brought to the Rajya Sabha. The Bill will be brought up for discussion in the Budget Session. We are confident of getting it passed in the Budget Session,” he said.
About the opposition that the Bill was facing among the alliance partners of UPA, particularly the Trinamool Congress, Bansal said they would convince the latter. He added that the situation would be explained to the Opposition parties too. He said the party would look at the issue with an open mind. He said he was personally against bringing the Prime Minister under the purview of Lokpal, but the PM himself was insistent on this. Bansal said the Congress was getting more Bills to fight corruption. Money Laundering Act, Whistleblowers Act, Right to Information and Delivery of Services were steps in this direction, he said, adding that to make one institution the others could not be destroyed.
Talking about electoral reforms, Bansal said the button for Right to Reject should be present on the Electronic Voting Machine. “In case a voter does not want to vote for any candidate, he or she can press the Right to Reject button. In case a majority rejects all the candidates, re-election should be held and these candidates be barred from contesting,” he said, adding that this was likely to lead to an increase in the voting percentage.
Terming the Right to Recall as impractical, Bansal said this was possible only in cases where the number of voters was very less.
–PTI–