Ahead of the June 15 meeting of the drafting committee on Lokpal Bill, the central government has been speaking in different voices on the demand for inclusion of prime minister within the ambit of the proposed corruption watchdog. Anna Hazare's team, which comprises half of the drafting committee, has been demanding the inclusion of PM along with higher judiciary and other officials. However, the government has been adamant on not only keeping the PM but also higher judiciary and lower bureaucracy out of the Lokpal's purview.

Team Anna has reminded the centre that several of its senior ministers, including Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram, on different occasions in the past have argued for inclusion of the PM under Lokpal. And in the past days, a few members of the Congress party seem to have shifted their stance a bit on this issue. Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh, for example, said he was for inclusion of the PM before he said he would go along with the party's decision. Jayanti Natarajan, too, made it clear that the government was still debating the issue.

The question, therefore, remains whether Team Anna will get its way on inclusion of the PM under Lokpal.