Kolkata, Aug 6 (ANI): Hitting out at the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government at the Centre over the exclusion of the Prime Minister from the ambit of Lokpal Bill, Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Prakash Karat has said that the government is not serious in dealing with corruption spiralling in the country.
"It says that the Prime Minister can be proceeded against after he ceases to be the Prime Minister, that is they recognise there can be corruption by the Prime Minister, but when he is the Prime Minister nothing can be done. That is the Prime Minister gets elected for five years, if at the first year he indulges in corruption, you know about it you can't do anything, you have to wait for five years for him for his term to be over, he retires as the Prime Minister and then you can proceed against him," said Karat during a meeting of CPI (M) and Left Front parties in Kolkata on Friday.
"We should be grateful to the Congress Party that they did not say not only after you retire, you can proceed only after he dies. So, this is the type of commitment to fight corruption of the government," he added.
Karat also lashed out at the UPA Government over endless incidents of graft and irregularities that have been surfacing during its governance.
"We have for the first time a former union minister (A. Raja, former Telecom Minister) in jail facing prosecution, others are standing in the queue to join him. We have some top bureaucrats in jail; we have top chief executives of corporations also in jail in Tihar," said Karat.
"But that is only the tip of the iceberg; everyday we see new exposes, exposures of the high level corruption. The UPA Government is presiding over an institutionalised regime of corruption," he added.
The much-debated Lokpal Bill, which aims to set up an anti-corruption watchdog in the country, was tabled in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
The proposed legislation introduced in the Lok Sabha doesn't cover the Prime Minister within the purview of the ombudsman during his or her term in office. But once the Prime Minister demits the office, he or she may be investigated for any wrongdoing during the term.
Meanwhile, former West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya addressing the meeting said the mistakes of the CPM-led Left Front should be examined in order to know the cause of the massive defeat after ruling the state for over three decades.
"After 34 years the Left Front Government has been defeated. It is our duty to analyse as to what went wrong? What happened and how? What we could achieve and what we could not? We have started to have discussions on this issue," said Bhattacharya.
"What we have done in the past four years is a history of the Left Front Government. Just because we are defeated that very fact can't die out," he added.
Bhattacharjee, resigned following defeat of his party in the assembly polls on May 13 ending three decades of Left Front rule in the province.
The CPM-led Left Front managed to win just 61 seats in the 294-member Assembly. (ANI)
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