New Delhi, July 2 (IANS) The Congress Saturday said it would support the party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s stand on the anti-graft Lokpal bill.
Briefing the media soon after a meeting between Congress president Sonia Gandhi and anti-corruption campaigner Anna Hazare, Congress spokesperson Janardhan Dwivedi said the UPA was a coalition government headed by the Congress and it was incumbent upon the party to support the Lokpal bill ‘finalised by it’.
Describing as ‘cordial’ the meeting between Gandhi and Hazare, along with his civil society team, Dwivedi said the Congress president told the civil society representatives that she would place before her colleagues the issues raised by them.
The Congress general secretary refused to go into details of the issues discussed at the meeting. ‘We will not discuss specific issues. That is not proper as the matter is being talked about with others,’ Dwivedi said.
Asked about Hazare’s statement to media after the meeting, Dwivedi said: ‘Whatever Anna has said could be what he has in his mind but nothing of that came before the meeting.’
‘If a half-baked bill is sent to parliament, what will the parliament discuss?’ Hazare said after a 20-minute meeting with Gandhi at her 10 Janpath residence.
