PM under Lokpal: What's your stand BJP, asks Cong

Questioning the Bharatiya Janata Party's "silence" over Lokpal Bill, Congress on Friday accused the opposition party of "political opportunism" and dared it to spell out its stand on the demand for bringing the prime minister and higher judiciary under the ambit of Lokpal.

In a first categorical response of the Congress on the issue, party spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi also made it clear that Congress was opposed to bringing prime minister and the higher judiciary under Lokpal but quickly added it was not final opinion and the party will go by the "collective will" of Parliament on the issue.

"The BJP has once again proved that it puts politics above national interest, evasion over constructive support, obfuscation over concrete action. Are they perhaps not the only party without a stand on Lokpal Bill? They have no stand either on government's draft or civil society's draft.

"It is a reprehensible conduct by an irresponsible party, which is not interested in Lokpal but only in a desperate game to get political power through backdoor by undemocratic means after democratic rejections," Singhvi said.

The BJP has made it clear that it is in favour of a Lokpal Bill but maintains that it has not yet formulated its stand on its nuances.

After a meeting with civil society members led by Anna Hazare on Friday, the opposition party said that it will take a decision on Saturday at a meeting of its National Democratic Alliance on whether to attend the all-party meeting on July 3 or not.

Congress leaders felt that BJP could skip the meeting. Singhvi alleged that the "excuses" by BJP for not coming out with a clear stand on it are "flimsy" and "most childish" and its "silence" has other reasons.