Day 2 of Advani’s Jan Chetna Yatra

BJP leader LK Advani on Wednesday said he was ridiculed by the Congress for raising the black money issue.

Addressing the press at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan, Advani said the UPA government has failed to tackle the black money issue.

While saying the issue never been pursued previously, the BJP leader demanded that the government reveal the names of Indians who have stashed black money in foreign havens.

He added that the opposition NDA will benefit from UPA’s poor performance in the next elections.

Advani was speaking on day two of his Jan Chetna Yatra which he started from Sitab Diara village in Bihar yesterday. From Patna, the senior BJP leader who has undertaken five rath yatras in the past will today move to Danapur and then to Ara and Buxar before entering Uttar Pradesh.

Advani overnight stayed in Bihar’s capital Patna. Advani today also said that he had not seen such a reception to any of his previous yatras as the one witnessed in Bihar.

The BJP leader’s Jan Chetna Yatra will take him through 100 districts in 38 days - and hopefully closer towards power in the next general election.

On Tuesday, he called for a "brighter India" free of corruption. He further asked people to take an oath that they would oppose graft and rising prices.

He also said yesterday that his party will force the government to bring back illegal money stashed abroad.

Political analysts feel that Advani chose popular themes like corruption and black money for his sixth rath yatra to avoid any controversy, as during his 1990 campaign for a Ram temple at Ayodhya.

Advani has since been on five similar campaigns for varying causes, but none as successful as the Somnath-Ayodhya Ram Rath Yatra.

The public awareness campaign will see Advani cover about 300 km a day in his special rath, a modified bus.

CWG scam: 36 crores wasted on badminton, squash courts

Nearly a year after the Commonwealth Games were held in Delhi, evidence of the seemingly-ubiquitous corruption that underlined the event continues to tumble out.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a new case today that finds irregularities in the construction of indoor courts at the Siri Fort complex in Delhi. The CBI states that squash and badminton courts were meant to be built for 118 crores, but the contract was finally awarded for 154 crores. Investigators are studying the alleged complicity of officials of the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) and the contractor they hired, B.E.Billimoria Co. Ltd. The DDA handles the construction and infrastructure for some public projects in the capital.

Today's case records the 15th FIR or formal police complaint related to corruption and inflated contracts that were a part of the Commonwealth Games. Senior members of the Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee are in prison, including former Chairman Suresh Kalmadi, who is also an MP from Pune.

After the FIR was registered, teams of CBI officials reached 21 locations in Delhi and Mumbai today morning to carry out search operations.

The government's auditor had found the Games littered with instances of bare-faced corruption. In its report, the Comptroller and Auditor General faulted many contracts signed for equipment and services. The enormity of the scam could once again be gauged as the CAG, in its report, found that prices of chairs had been hugely inflated resulting in a mammoth loss to the exchequer. The auditor found that a chair which actually cost Rs. 1,850 was bought for a mind-boggling Rs. 17,566. Thus, 2,336 chairs were bought for three venues at Rs. 4.36 crore, thus resulting in a loss of Rs. 2.74 crore.

This is the first case registered by the CBI after a Special Investigation Team was constituted last month to study the Comptroller and Auditor General's report.

Team Anna blames 'why the government took a U-turn on the issues'

 Team Anna feels that the Congress is divided over the Jan Lokpal Bill and believes that the party's internal politics forced the Government to take a U-turn. The Government called Team Anna at 1 am, said sources, and invited them for another round of talks on Today, after Wednesday night's talks ended on a bitter note.

Arvind Kejriwal on Today squarely blamed Union Ministers Kapil Sibal and P Chidambaram for the breakdown.

"Sibal and Chidambaram strongly opposed the talks process. Perhaps that is why the government took a U-turn on the issues we had (earlier) agreed upon," Kejriwal said.

"We have become victims of internal politics of Congress. How many rounds of talks we have had with senior leaders like Kapil Sibal and Chidambaram but nothing has happened till now. Whom will we talk to?," he added.

The Government, after an all-party meet on Wednesday, said that parliamentary procedures can't be bypassed.

The Centre seemed to have hardened its stand during Wednesday night's talks with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee saying that due consideration would be given to Anna Hazare's Jan Lokpal Bill, echoing the resolution passed by an all-party meeting on Wednesday evening. "It's back to square one," said Kiran Bedi after the meeting.

Sources said if the Government doesn't agree, Team Anna will have no choice but to intensify its agitation.

Anna Hazare's is said to be feeling fine even as his fast enters the tenth day on Thursday.

He told supporters to continue protesting peacefully and to court arrest if he is forcibly taken to hospital.

But Delhi's Police Commissioner has allayed those apprehensions and said Anna Hazare would be taken out of the Ramlila Maidan only if the doctors attending to him advised hospitalisation.

Earlier, at the all-party meeting held at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's 7 Race Course Road residence on Wednesday afternoon, the Government offered to make changes in the Lokpal Bill it has tabled in Parliament. But the entire Opposition wants the Government to withdraw its bill.

However, the Government said that there is no need for the withdrawal of the bill.

The Government has agreed that an amended Lokpal Bill will be tabled in Parliament but has refused to give any timeline for the final bill. The final bill will contain amendments suggested by Team Anna or any other group and the Prime Minister will be brought under the Lokpal's ambit.

The Lokpal will replace the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as the investigation agency for corruption cases and a citizens' charter will be included for redressal.

But two main sticking points remain: Lokayuktas for all states and inclusion of lower bureaucracy under the Lokpal.

Chairman of UIDAI Nilekani said Lokpal is no magic bullet

Urging Team Anna not to look for quick-fix solutions to corruption, chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India Nandan Nilekani said that while the concerns and anger of the agitating public were legitimate, their methods and goal were not.

In an interview to Nilekani said that the Lokpal Bill was not a “magic bullet” that would eliminate corruption in the country. It could, at best, serve as one of several measures needed to tackle corruption in a holistic manner.

 He said, “I am not a great believer that if you pass a law, corruption will miraculously vanish. Nor do I think that creating a huge army of policemen will reduce corruption. You have to go back and look at the systems. I have spent 30-35 years working on how to make large systems work. You have to fundamentally analyse and improve the systems themselves. This (Lokpal law) is just one of the many many things that we need to do. I don’t think that it (Lokpal) is the only thing we should be doing.”

“I fully endorse the fact that they want to address the problem of corruption but I think they should look at it in a much more strategic holistic manner and not by just passing a law. This is absolutely uni-dimensional,” he said.

Efforts to undermine supremacy of Parliament and elected representatives in legislative matters were “extremely dangerous and completely wrong.