Lok Sabha in Delhi passed the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill, which delivers a new national ombudsman with nine members to investigate charges of corruption among government servants.
However, the Lokpal will not be a constitutional body, as the government wanted - it did not manage a two-thirds majority of MPs present and voting on two of the three clauses of the Constitutional Amendment Bill. And its numbers did not cross 273 which are just past the half-way mark of the total number of seats in the Lok Sabha.
Both conditions need to be satisfied to amend the Constitution. (Read) The Prime Minister described this as "a bit of disappointment" and added, "We have, however, fulfilled our objective of bringing these bills to Parliament as we had promised."
There is though no getting around the fact that the failure is a crippling embarrassment for the Congress, not just because the defeat exposes its numerical weakness but also because the constitutional status had been proposed by Rahul Gandhi. Reports say that the Congress will issue showcause notices to 12 of its MPs who were not present in the Lok Sabha for the crucial vote despite the party's three-line whip.
After the Constitutional Amendment Bill was defeated, an angry Pranab Mukherjee said in Parliament that the defeat was "a sad day for democracy", and blamed the BJP, warning, "The people will teach you a lesson." The BJP was quick to return fire. "Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has no moral right to continue in office, the government should resign on moral grounds," said the party's Yashwant Sinha.
