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Journalism of Courage
Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley on Wednesday slammed the government for erosion of credibility of politicians among the public and said that people have the right to protest and their anger against rampant corruption is fierce and fair.
The BJP leader initiated a short discussion on growing incidence of corruption in the country and referred to 20 years of economic reforms which,he said,had led to surge in corruption. Corruption existed in land acquisition,spectrum allocation,and underwater mining operation,Jaitley said,adding corruption was omnipresent whether in land,air or sea.
Setting the tone for discussion on the Jan Lokpal Bill in the coming days,Jaitley accused the UPA government of acting like a child in handling the Anna Hazare agitation. Enormity of protests is proportionate to anger and the enormity of anger is proportionate to the corruption, he said.
He said the government had lost the moral battle as it wanted to control appointment of Lokpal,adding that most proposals of the civil society,like inclusion of the PM,judicial accountability and public grievance redressal mechanism were reasonable.
If still there is no agreement,the will of Parliament will prevail, he said. However,most of the proposals of the civil society can be made compatible with the Constitution.
Advising the government to have a serious re-look at its Lokpal Bill,he asked how can people accept a Bill that has provision for punishment of a corrupt official for minimum six months while a complainant gets 2-5 years for a false complaint.
Finding faults with the handling of the civil society activists,he said,First you led them up to a garden path,then suddenly dumped them. Now they do not trust you anymore.
