New Delhi: The fate of the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha is looking uncertain and the House is unlikely to pass the legislation as the Trinamool Congress and several Opposition parties are adamant on moving as many as 205 amendments in the Bill.
The Trinamool has once again forced the UPA into a corner and accept its demand to delete the Lokayukta clause from the Lokpal Bill being debated in the Rajya Sabha. Sources say that the decision to accept Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's demand was taken at the Congress core group meeting in Thursday evening.
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee also spoke to Mamata Banerjee even as the Congress tried to reach out to all its allies. But the woes for the Congress is not only its inability to secure the support of its allies but also all its MPs. Two Congress MPs P Kannan and Vijay Darda will be absent from the Rajya Sabha during the vote.
Congress is also in talks with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Samajwadi Party and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) to support the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha where the UPA is in a minority.
BSP Rajya Sabha MP Satish Chandra Mishra and RJD chief Lalu Prasad met Mukherjee on Thursday evening to discuss the Lokpal Bill and their stand on it.
"We will not walk out. We are sticking to our stand on Lokayukta and federal structure," said Mishra after the meeting.
"RJD won't walk out. We will press for ammendments on the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha," said Lalu.
The UPA hopes that by removing Chapter three in its entirety – where the Lokayukta clauses are contained – it will be possible to secure the numbers for the rest of the Bill to be passed by the Rajya Sabha.
This will not, however, lead to the passage of the Bill into an Act. For, if the Rajya Sabha does pass the Bill in any format that is different from the version passed in the Lok Sabha, it will go back to the Lower House for acceptance in this form. However, that can only take place when Parliament is reconvened after the extended Winter Session, which may not be before February 2012.
However, Trinamool MP Mukul Roy said that his party will not support the present Lokpal Bill.
"We have spoken in the House. How the Government cannot ask us to retreat? Remove Lokayukta clause and Lokpal will go through. Otherwise, our hands are tied," said Roy.
With a total of 205 amendments listed for the Bill in the Rajya Sabha, this acceptance on the part of the government of the Trinamool Congress’s demand still may not mean that the Bill is passed by the Upper House. The UPA will still have to get its numbers right, where its own strength and that of Independent and nominated MPs – who are likely to vote with the government – runs to 114. The Opposition numbers 102, which means that the votes of the remaining 27 – the BSP, the SP and the RJD – will determine the fate of the Bill.
Irrespective of the political points that the government and the Opposition may score from this move, even if the UPA can now secure the passage of the Lokpal Bill without the Lokayukta elements through Rajya Sabha, its final enactment is not yet a certainty. With parties changing their stance continuously – for instance, the Trinamool Congress accepted the Lokayukta in the Lok Sabha but demurred in the Rajya Sabha – there is no telling which way the voting will go when the Lok Sabha takes up the amended version.
All this is, of course, assuming that there are no further changes in the script in the next few hours.
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