No ultimatum issued to govt on lokpal bill, says Kejriwal

New Delhi, May 31: Arvind Kejriwal, Social Activist has denied allegations that there are differences within the civil society group on the "Lokpal bill" and said that no ultimatum was issued to government after the meeting on Monday, that ended after the two sides differed on their opinion on all key issues.

"We have not issued any ultimatum. We went for the meeting yesterday, we were not satisfied by the position taken by the government. We found the intentions of the government suspect," said Kejriwal.

Anna Hazare's team demanded the inclusion of Prime Minister in the bill threatening a walkout. Kejriwal claimed that no norms were violated by Hazare's team.

"Right from the beginning we have been advocating complete transparency in the proceedings of the meeting. We have been saying that the entire meetings should be either live telecast or video recorded and the records should be made public. The government has been consistently been refusing that," he said.

When questioned further if Lokpal Bill was the only way to tackle corruption he said, "Some people are saying that Judicial Accountability Bill should tackle the problem. We told the government that we have no problem. All that we want is credible and effective mechanism to deal with corruption. So bring the Judicial Accountability Bill right now. The present draft of the Judicial Accountability Bill present in the parliament is a completely ineffective draft - it is not meant to check corruption, it is meant to encourage corruption in judiciary."

Kejriwal also showed his support to Baba Ramdev's campaign against black-money.

"Baba Ramdev has been a leading light against corruption and we support him and his agitation against corruption. If he has any misunderstandings on some issue, we will discuss with him," he added.

OneIndia News