Patna, April 22: The JD (U) today alleged that the Congress was trying to scuttle the ongoing efforts for drafting the Jan Lok Pal Bill by creating controversies over the conduct of some of the members in the panel.

JD (U) Rajya Sabha MP Shivanand Tiwary, while addressing a news conference at the party office, said: “The Congress is making attempts to scuttle the ongoing effort for drafting the Jan Lok Pal Bill by unnecessarily dragging the names of Shanti Bhushan, his son Prashant Bhushan and Santosh Hegde into controversies. It wants to divert people’s attention from the core issue of corruption.”

The JD (U) leader said corruption has become synonymous with the Congress as the party, which claims to be the oldest in the country, is named in various corruption cases. Shivanand also listed the major scams and scandals during the Congress regime at the Centre.

“The infamous 2G spectrum scam involving DMK leaders is just an eye wash. Even big Congress leaders are involved in the scam but to save their skin they have made DMK leader and former telecom minister A. Raja a scapegoat,” he added.

Tiwary said that the Lok Pal Bill was supposed to be passed in Parliament in 1969. Since then, efforts have been made eight to nine times but the Congress government has paid little interest in passing the bill in Parliament.

Tiwary added the Congress is targeting the three panellist in the Lok Pal Bill drafting committee as it had a dispute with Shanti Bhushan and Prashant Bhushan for a long time. On Congress’s plea that the prime minister and central ministers be kept out of the purvey of the Lok Pal Bill, Tiwary said: “The prime minister cannot escape the responsibility for whatever his ministers do.”