New Delhi, June 29 (ANI): Describing the meeting with Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Prakash Karat as positive, social activists Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi on Wednesday said that Karat agreed on several points with the civil society members over the Lokpal Bill.
Speaking to reporters here, Kejriwal said core points of civil society's draft of the bill were agreed upon, such as the inclusion of the Prime Minister within the ambit of the Lokpal.
"We brought to their notice the differences between the proposed draft by the government and the one formulated by us. We told them that the government officers that are being brought under the Lokpal purview is very less as compared to many organisations that they intend to bring under the ambit of the Lokpal. They also agreed that the organisations that get government funding should be brought under the Lokpal purview," he said.
However, putting small organisations like hospitals and others would make the Lokpal's workings unmanageable. Secondly they are in favour of Prime Minister coming under the purview. They said that they would discuss the other points within the party," he added.
Commenting on Manmohan Singh's meeting with the senior editors, Kejriwal said Dr. Singh should himself declare to bring Prime Minister under the Lokpal purview.
"We would be very happy if the Prime Minister can respond on this question. He is said to be a very honest minister and no one can raise fingers as far as financial integrity is concerned. So therefore if it does not happen in his time then when will it happen? Therefore we expect him to state very clearly and issue a direction to his, that he wants Prime Minister to be included in Lokpal," said Kejriwal.
Bedi described the meeting as encouraging and said a synergy was found between the CPI (M) and civil society members on the Prime Minister being brought within the purview of the Lokpal.
"We found great deal of clarity and particularly (found) synergy between CPI (M) and us with regards to bringing the Prime Minister within the purview of the Lokpal, the inclusion of the officers of lower ranks and a need to keep a check on the working of the judiciary," she said
The parliamentarians' corruption also in the parliament would also be included in the Lokpal or by an amendment of the act, so I think we found this to be very encouraging. We will be able to have CPI (M) speak up clearly on the floor of the house for certain issues that have been raised by the Anna Hazare team," she added.
The final meeting between the government and civil society representatives on the Lokpal Bill ended here on June 21 with differences continuing to persist on six issues including bringing the post of the Prime Minister under the purview of Lokpal.
Two sets of drafts- one by the government and the other by the civil society representatives would now be circulated amongst political parties and then would be forwarded to the cabinet for the final drafting of the bill. (ANI)
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