Concerns on Lokpal Bill

Email sent on 11-Apr-2011
Dear Mrs Bedi,

My concerns are

1. Inclusion of father and son is not right. We criticize Congress so much for dynastic politics and now we are dependent on dynasty. I heard Anna's defense in CNN IBN in his interview with Rajdeep. I don't find it convincing at all. Shanti Bhusan was not part of the panel who drafted Jan Lokpal bill (as mentioned in Indiaagainstcorruption.org site). Moreover he is too old to be co-chairman. He is 86 years old! The reason Anna does not want to bring other members of civil society in the panel is to avoid difference in opinion within his team members. His argument is that those who drafted the bill should be in the panel to defend it. I think P Bhusan and Justice Santosh Hegde should be good enough to defend every line of the bill. Our emotion fluctuates too quickly. On 9-Apr Sobhaa De Tweeted 'If anybody in India deserves a Bharat Ratna it is Anna '. Same Shobhaa tweeted today 'Most critical time for democracy starts now. Avoid dynasty in Lokpal implementation. Stay sane. Act coolly. Euphoria over. It's time 4 maturity'
2. Anna also said that it is not a question of representation, it is level of expertise. In that case Kejriwal and Anna should not be in the panel because they are not legal expert. 
3. Yesterday Anna asked every CM to emulate Modi and Nitish Kumar. I am shocked that he praised Modi who is a serial killer. No congress sympathizer or Muslims would believe that Modi is a good man in spite of the fact whatever development work he undertook for Gujarat. Anna must be extremely careful what he says. Any loose talk by Anna and his team will create confusion among supporters of anti corruption movement and media will not waste any time to pick those comments up.
4. I was watching Kejriwal in Karan's Devil's Advocate show. He is a very simple and nice man. But Karan ripped him apart with his sharp tongue. Kejriwal could not answer any of the allegations leveled by Karan. Can Kejriwal win arguments with Sibal and Pranab? We need a person of weight like Ratan Tata or Narayan Murthy in the panel.
5. Suddenly people have started using Anna for their own publicity. This will cause distraction for Anna. IIPM too quick to announce Rs 1 crore for Anna. He must be careful about these people.
6. Many people started calling him modern day Gandhi. With all due respect to Anna, he is not. In this regard Rajdeep Sardesai's tweets are quite relevant. He tweeted 'media has done well by backing the need for a strong lok pal bill. we will now do a disservice by seeing Anna as a mahatma'. He went on to tweet 'Too many middle class heroes get destroyed by being made cult figures. let anna remain anna, not mahatma. gnight.'
7. As emotion settled down and people got the time to read the Jan Lokpal bill between lines and more and more analysis are coming in the media, people pointing flaws in the draft of Jan Lokpal bill. So we need a strong orator to debate with representative of government panel. Government is determined to table the bill in the parliament by 30-Jun-11 whether there is an agreement or not and take full credit for the bill.
8. Let me ask you a hypothetical question. If Nehru, Patel, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Ambedkar returns today, do you still need Lokpal Bill?
9. RTI is a very powerful tool for common man. But it couldn't stop corruption. However election commission was able to root out riiging in the election process. If CBI is made as autonomous as election commission with a power to prosecute any minister including PM, do we need a lokpal bill? We will get the answer to all these questions in next 2 months.

Finally Lokpal bill should be drafted with a clear objective of sending India's top 100 corrupt people (everyone knows who they are) to jail by mid 2013 in a democratic process. At the same time bill must not try to undermine authority of parliament and supreme court.