Kapil Sibal, senior cabinet minister, said the Jan Lokpal bill, for which hundreds have already courted arrest, is only “Anna’s law.”
Sibal said the law represented the thought process of Anna Hazare, as an individual, and he should not try to force it down on the country.
“I, as in individual, has decided on law… I won’t accept anything else… If you don’t pass it, I will fast.. Is that a reasonable way of moving forward in a democracy?” Sibal asked.
Sibal said that if one person, like Anna Hazare, is allowed to fast for a law, others too may try to fast to death for other laws.
“Someone else may say, I have this law, Parliament must pass it, government must put it into force. Or I will go on a fast,” he said.
People cannot be allowed to go on fast for passing laws that they like, he pointed out.
Home minister P Chidambaram too said that the ultimate right to pass laws lay only with the Parliament and this right “cannot be allowed to be taken away.”