Gujarat minister springs a surprise, slams Hazare

As politicians across India are rushing to back the Anna Hazare-led movement for a strong anti-corruption watchdog – either wholeheartedly or opportunistically – Gujarat law and parliamentary affairs minister Dilip Sanghani, has struck a sharply differing note, saying the job of making laws rests with Parliament and no one can use the ''mob'' to force it to pass a bill.

''I don't want to name anyone but nobody can force Parliament to pass a certain bill or Act. Parliament is the supreme authority in this country for lawmaking, and no one can force it using mobocracy to pass any Bill. No individual or group can force it to act in a certain way,'' the minister told reporters in Gandhinagar, the state capital.

Sanghani is reputedly a close aide of state chief minister Narendra Modi. His statements are the more surprising as Modi himself has publicly said he backs Hazare's movement against corruption.

Sanghani said, ''Parliament passes the bills under the Constitution and no civilian group or committee can challenge it. No one in the country can be allowed use coercion and crisis to get an act they want passed.''

According to Sanghani, such a method was constitutionally wrong and a threat to the democratic structure of the country. ''MPs cannot be bribed, allured or pressured in any manner to get the Jan Lokpal bill (the Hazare team's version of the bill) passed. This is not democracy … this is an interference with the functioning of the Lok Sabha. Everyone must allow the MPs to act freely in adopting a bill.''

Sanghani's was the first dissenting voice from the non-Congress camp in Gujarat.

While Modi was silent on Hazare's call to his supporters to ''gherao'' the MPs to pressure them to get the bill passed, MPs from the state belonging to the BJP were more than eager to stay on the right side of the demonstrators.

At least four BJP MPs - party veteran Harin Pathak, Vadodara mayor and Lok Sabha member Balkrishna Shukla, the former State BJP president and MP from Bhavnagar, Rajendrasinh Rana, and Kirit Solanki - have already submitted in writing that they will support the Jan Lokpal bill in Parliament.