Congress on Sunday hit back at Anna Hazare and Ramdev accusing the civil society of working to undermine democracy backed by BJP, which was using ‘unconstitutional’ methods in the anti-corruption movement.
Senior Congress leader and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee also took on RSS saying it was raising the corruption issue because it had become ‘jittery’ after the Congress accused it of having links with the Malegaon blasts.
Mukherjee while announcing Congress' plans to launch a nationwide anti-corruption campaign took on BJP, saying it was backing Hazare and Ramdev to gain support of people after it was ‘rejected’ in the recent Assembly polls and accused the party of providing ‘logistic support’ to their agitations and resorting to ‘unconstitutional practice’.
"The Constitution has given the power to legislate only to Parliament and the state Assemblies. If 5,000 or 6,000 people dictate from outside what the Parliament ought to do, this will weaken democracy," he told a press conference. The campaign is seen as a bid by Congress to counter the movement by Hazare and Ramdev.
In hard-hitting remarks targeting BJP, Mukherjee said, "When the parties are rejected by the people and if they want to resort to unconstitutional practice it is totally unacceptable. They are providing logistic support to all those agitations." He however did not name the party.
Mukherjee said the audio-recording of every meeting of the drafting committee was available on the website of the Department of Personnel and "if people are interested, those can be heard from the websites".
"Every word is audio-taped. When required, those may be published together," he said.
"The Congress and its allies have formed governments in three states after the Assembly polls. So, the BJP supported the fast of Anna Hazare. The CPI(M) Politburo took a resolution supporting him. Some political parties also extended support," Mukherjee said.
Mukherjee, who released a document in English containing his party's views on the issue, said the Congress was launching an awareness campaign all over the country.
"The documents will be made available in other languages. Debates, discussions and seminars would be organised right from the district to the block levels to put forth our views," he said.
Asked why the government had earlier held talks with Hazare and Ramdev, he said, "We gave them a chance, because if you do not talk to them, you will be accused of arrogance. Now that you have talked, it is said that you are weak."
To a question whether the situation now was similar to the situation that prompted the Centre to impose Emergency in the Seventies, he said, "It is not exactly the same, but there are some similarities ... But I can assure that there will be no repetition of Emergency."
Mukherjee said that the RSS was raising the corruption issue because it had become "jittery" after the Congress accused it of having links with the Malegaon blasts.
Pointing out that corruption had not been an issue during the Assembly elections in Assam, Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, he said, "When political parties are rejected by the people and they want to resort to unconstitutional practices, it is unacceptable."
He said after the Congress performed better in the last Lok Sabha elections compared to the previous one, the BJP decided to stall Parliamentary proceedings over the 2G spectrum scam.
"We wanted the PAC to inquire because it is a permanent JPC headed by the Leader of the Opposition. But (the BJP) kept the Parliamentary proceedings stalled for various durations over the 2G issue. We accepted the JPC stand because we had to have the Budget Session to get Rs 12 lakh crore expenditure approved by the House," he said.
Mukherjee said after the JPC was formed, PAC chairman Murli Manohar Joshi demanded that he be allowed to investigate the scam. "The legal and constitutional position is that these two committees are now in confrontation."
Pointing out that a demand was now being raised for bringing MPs under the Lokpal for their misconduct in the House, he said Article 105 provided the members immunity from speech and voting.
Stating that the Constitution was supreme in the Indian system, Mukherjee said the Congress was bound to protect it. "The Congress will do just that. We will fight whoever tries to subvert the Constitution."
On the question of black money, the Finance Minister said the UPA-I had enacted the Prevention of Money Laundering Act with provisions for confiscating the property of the offender.
Under UPA-II, Rs 18,750 crore was unearthed in Income Tax searches, Rs 12,000 crore in Income Tax surveys and Rs 33,784 crore in mispricing goods and services. Besides, Rs 22,697 crore was collected due to special attention on cross-border transactions and business deals, he said.
On the demand for declaration of black money stashed abroad as national asset, Mukherjee said even if that was done, the government could do nothing "if the government of a foreign country refuses to part with the money."
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