India passes anti-graft bill

India's government sighed with relief yesterday after parliament's lower house passed an anti-corruption bill that has become a political albatross around the neck of Premier Manmohan Singh's coalition.
The bill, creating a powerful ombudsman to probe graft among senior politicians and civil servants, was passed by a voice vote in the Lok Sabha late Tuesday after a fractious debate.
Meanwhile, Indian anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare yesterday called off his latest hunger strike but vowed to step up his campaign to turn voters against the "traitors" in the ruling party and government.
Hazare only began what was billed as a three-day fast in the financial capital Mumbai on Tuesday. He has been laid low with a virus since the weekend and heeded the advice of doctors to bring the protest to a premature end.
Despite the early end to his hunger strike, Hazare said he would continue to fight what he claimed was a government that was "acting like a dictator".
"If this continues, what can we do? We have to save the country. Every one of you should be ready to go to jail," he told supporters.
In a sign of his increasingly bitter battle with the ruling Congress party and the administration of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he said he would tour five states holding elections next year to educate voters about corruption.
More than 170,000 people have signed up to court arrest and imprisonment by protesting outside the homes of government ministers and members of parliament, according to Hazare's India Against Corruption group.
The legislation has dominated the political agenda in India for months, piling pressure on Singh's administration which was already the target of fierce criticism over a series of high-profile corruption scandals.
The government had to redraft an earlier version in the wake of mass protests across the country in August, spearheaded by hunger-striking activist Anna Hazare who insisted the proposed bill was too weak.
The government's victory was tempered by its failure to get the two-thirds majority required to make the bill a constitutional amendment.
"This is a bit of disappointment that it could not be passed," Singh said afterwards.
It was a personal defeat for Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi political dynasty and widely tipped as future prime minister, who had initiated the move to give the ombudsman's office constitutional status.
There is also a strong chance that final passage of the bill could be delayed as it faces a rough ride in the upper house of parliament, where Singh's ruling coalition is in the minority.
Nevertheless, analysts said Tuesday's vote would give a major boost to the government, which has suffered a series of legislative setbacks in recent months and battled repeated accusations of policy drift.
It will give an especially welcome fillip to Singh's ruling Congress Party ahead of a series of crucial state elections over the next two months.
"The Congress has not just silenced the opposition but also the civil society members who were their biggest threat," said Anjana Mathur, a political science professor at Delhi University.