Nitish Kumar

Patna, Nov. 26: Nitish Kumar today stepped up the process of tabling the Bihar Lokayukta bill in the coming session of the state legislature despite Opposition parties objecting to certain clauses and asking the government to defer it till the Centre formulates the Lokpal bill.

“We have got valuable suggestions from all opposition parties. The suggestions will be sent to the cabinet sub-committee on the draft bill for their consideration,” the chief minister said, emerging from the meeting that lasted for nearly two hours.

That Nitish had failed to procure a consensus on the bill became evident when almost all the political parties, except the CPM, objected to some of the clauses in the draft bill and accused Nitish of “pre-empting” it ahead of the Lokpal to earn the sobriquet of a “torch-bearer” on the issue of corruption that has rocked the country.

In spite of holding dissenting views, the Opposition parties looked helpless for they can hardly deter the Nitish government, which enjoys a brute majority, from tabling it in the legislature and getting it passed also.

The only bottleneck in Nitish’s way appears to be the Raj Bhavan for it is a money bill which will go to governor Devanand Konwar for clearance ahead of its tabling, first in the Assembly and then in the Legislative Council.

Nitish admitted as much. “After incorporating the suggestions, the final version of the draft bill will go to the cabinet which will send it to the governor after approving it,” he said.

Sources in the bureaucracy revealed that the sub-committee headed by deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi was working hard on the bill with all eagerness to table it in the coming session.

The Congress and RJD virtually joined hands in opposing the clauses of the bill and asked the chief minister to at least defer it till the budget session of the legislature. “It has become obvious that Nitish was more interested in pre-empting the credit on the bill rather than making it into an effective tool to check corruption,” state RJD chief Ram Chandra Purbey said.

Objecting to the clauses of the bill, Purbey said: “If the bill talks about keeping the chief minister in its ambit, the chief minister should not be a part of the selection committee to appoint the Lokayukta. How can a Lokayuka appointed by a chief minister carry out an objective probe against him?” The draft bill has the chief minister as the chairman of the selection committee.

Congress legislature party leader Sadanand Singh too said the state government should not show “hurry” in forcing the bill. He too objected to the selection committee, saying it should be broad-based.

“Moreover, what is the need of bringing the Lokayuka bill ahead of Centre’s Lokpal which talks about bringing the Lokpals on similar lines in all the states,” he asked.

Nitish got an unusual ally in the CPM’s Sarvodaya Sharma, who called for the “immediate constitution of the Lokayukta in Bihar”. The CPM, however, does not have a single legislator in the state Assembly.