No point in passing 'useless' Bill: Team Anna

Bedi says bill is 'flawed to fail'

PTI | December 29, 2011



A day after Anna Hazare called off his agitations on Lokpal, Team Anna on Thursday admitted that his fast did not create the desired pressure on government and said there was no point in passing this "completely useless" bill.

The core committee of Team Anna will be meeting in Ralegan Siddhi on January two and three to decide on the future course of action as Hazare abruptly announced the scrapping of the jail bharo agitation and other protest plans.

"The fast was meant to create pressure. Now that on the first day itself they passed an ineffective and useless bill, there was no value of that pressure. So it was decided that it would not do any benefit and Anna's health was not well, so it was called off," Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan told reporters here after a meeting of some of the core committee members.

On the Lokpal bill, which is before the rajya sabha, he said, "There is no point in passing this bill. This is completely useless bill. If it is passed or not, it does not make any difference."

Kiran Bedi said government bill was "flawed to fail. It is so designed. Its proposed architecture protects the corrupt and weakens investigation processes."

Poor crowds and failing health forced Hazare to end his three-day fast ahead of schedule yesterday as he also called off all other agitation plans, including a jail bharo protest and gherao of MPs' residence.

Asked what went wrong for Team Anna with the Mumbai protest, Bedi told PTI, "Anna's viral fever, short notice to the city, choice of a venue which was not well connected for easy access and Parliament in session."

She also claimed that the government "bulldozing" in passing a weak bill in Lok Sabha also affected their protest.

On whether by targeting Congress alone, Team Anna was playing into the hands of BJP, she said Congress is the party in power.

"Hence it is Congress alone which can take appropriate initiatives and respond to people's demands. Had it been BJP we would have done the same. We remain apolitical. We are not playing into anyone's hands. But we are certainly explaining our rationale to parties whoever is willing to listen for clauses we want amended," she said.

To a question on how Team Anna defend itself for not campaigning against SP or BSP, she said all campaigning depends on Hazare's health.

"However it shall be against all those parties who allow a weak bill to be passed in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha," she said.

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