PM should not be brought under Lokpal ambit: Farooq Abdullah

Mumbai, Jun 30: In the backdrop of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's willingness to come under the Lokpal, Union Minister and National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah on Wednesday, Jun 29 said he was against such a proposition.

"The Prime Minister is an honest and noble man. He would want to come under the Lokpal ambit and he has no objections to it. There are many people who favour the PM to come under Lokpal but I am one of them who opposes because I think there are certain things that are done in national interest, which the common man should not know," Abdullah told reporters here.

The PM told a group of editors in Delhi that he has no hesitation in subjecting himself to the jurisdiction of Lokpal while ruling out inclusion of higher judiciary within the ambit of the anti-corruption ombudsman.

"It is important to be secretive about certain things, which would allow the prime minister to easily take decisions which are important for the country," the Union minister for New and Renewable Energy said.

Terming the incident of bodies of policemen, killed by Maoists in Chhattisgarh, being carried in a garbage truck as "unfortunate", Abdullah said, "But I think it would be unfair to blame the chief minister as he would not have been aware of the vehicle in which the martyrs were brought in," adding that the people who brought them in a garbage truck be investigated.

PTI