Anna’s threat has put the Congress-led UPA government at the backfoot and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened a special meeting of the Union Cabinet on Sunday to discuss the format of the bill and various recommendations made by the civil society and the opposition parties.
The Lokpal bill will be discussed and approved during the cabinet meeting and would then be tables in Parliament on Tuesday for urgent consideration and passage.
The Centre has also formed a three-member team of the Cabinet - comprising Law Minister Salman Khurshid, Home Minister P Chidambaram and Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayanasamy – which will hold internal consultations to finalise the bill.
The final draft of the Lokpal Bill will be overseen by Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, according to sources.
The consultations come in the wake of the meetings of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) leaders this week and an all-party meeting on the contentious legislation, which ended inconclusively.
The fresh move by the government to introduce the Lokpal Bill comes a day after Anna Hazare threatened a fresh agitation from January 1 if a "strong Lokpal bill" is not passed by then.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is on a three-day visit to Russia, will be back in the capital Saturday evening, a day before the scheduled special meeting of the Cabinet.
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