Civil society can't usurp Parliament power, says Congress

KOLKATA: Congress has decided to launch a country-wide movement against forces that do not contest elections, but organise movements to ‘weaken the democratic fabric’ of the nation, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Kolkata on Sunday. Prompted by agitations led by civil society activist Anna Hazare and yoga guru Baba Ramdev, Congress has released a document to highlight its views. Mukherjee told a news conference that the document will be printed in all major Indian languages and will also be handed over to state party units so that they could lead a movement to convince the people about the ‘illintention’ of such forces to ‘weaken’ the democratic set up.

“Parliament was given the right to formulate laws. But a section of civil society wants to have supremacy over Parliament and for the purpose, they are organising hunger strikes and other forms of movements to pressure the government . Such moves would not be tolerated ,” Mukherjee said. The government’s idea to choose Kolkata, the capital of a state where the UPA secured a thumping victory over the CPM-led Left Front, despite the anti-corruption campaigns against it, was significant. “Unconstitutional practices of a section of civic society, which generally don’t take part in election, but try to influence the democratic set up and the Constitution of India will not be tolerated,” Mukherjee said.

“Anna Hazare has said that he will go for a fresh hunger strike from August 16 if our government fails to pass the Lokpal Bill by August 15. But one should realise that there is a system in Parliament which every political party — ruling and opposition — should follow. We would not be able to do anything bypassing Parliament and existing norms. Naturally, it may not be possible for the government to accept such a demand by any individual,” Mukherjee said. He criticised the main Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party for creating a deadlock in the Lok Sabha.


“We had to cancel the entire winter session of the Lok Sabha in 2010 due to BJP’s continuous agitation over the 2G spectrum allocation probe. BJP was demanding a probe by the joint parliamentary committee into the 2G spectrum allocation scam. We had to succumb to their demand because we had to pass the budget in the Lok Sabha. We agreed to hold an inquiry into the scam by the Public Accounts Committee, of which a senior BJP leader was chairman. But BJP was insisted on holding a JPC probe and we accepted their demand. Now there is a confrontation between JPC and PAC,” the finance minister said.

“BJP has decided that they will not allow the Lok Sabha to function . The party had contested 411 assembly seats of the total 824 seats in West Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu , Assam and Puducherry but won only 5 seats. How poorly has BJP performed and still it is determined to create disturbances in the day-to-day proceedings of Parliament ,” Mukherjee said, adding that BJP had supported the Hazare-Ramdev agitations. The opposition was demanding that Rs 400 lakh crore black money deposited in several foreign banks be brought back to the country and declared national property.

“We have now tax information exchange agreement with 37 countries by which our government is in a position to know the exact volume of Indian money deposited in several banks of these countries. But the government cannot divulge the names of depositors. Very recently, our government recovered . 18,000 crore by conducting Income-Tax raids and another Rs 12,000 crore by holding different IT-related operations. Altogether we have recovered Rs 64,000 crore black money. But we cannot bring back the huge volume of black money deposited in several foreign banks and brand them national property,” Mukherjee said.