Ready to enact Lokpal Bill in next session: Pranab

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said that the United Progressive Alliance government was ready to bring in and get the Lokpal Bill passed in the next session of Parliament if the Opposition cooperated with it.

Responding to queries on Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani's demand that the Lokpal Bill should be introduced and passed in the next session of Parliament itself, Mukherjee said, "We are glad to get it passed if the opposition co-operated for it. I really welcome the suggestion. BJP is the principal opposition party."

"If he (Advani) prevails upon his members we will be too glad to get it passed without sending it to the Standing Committee. But instead of making announcements from the platform, let him ensure that his members in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha will co-operate with us," Mukherjee told mediapersons at the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee headquarters.

But he sought to know what the BJP-led national Democratic Alliance government had done for the enactment of the Lokpal Bill when it was in power from 1998 to 2004. "What had Advani done? What prevented him from getting the bill passed when he was the home minister when the NDA was in power?" Mukherjee said.

On Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev's criticism about nomination of father-son lawyer duo Santhi Bhushan and Prasanth Bhushan as civil society members in the Lokpal drafting panel, he said these names were proposed by Anna Hazare himself.

The agreement between the campaigners and the government was that the nominees of the panel would be decided on 50:50 ratio by each side. It was agreed that the government nominees would be selected by the prime minister and the civil group representatives by Hazare himself, he said.