Cong, SP question allotment of farmhouses to Bhushans

"We welcome the efforts of Anna Hazare on Lokpal Bill but they (Bhushans) and their family members will have to answer the questions that are being raised...This raises doubts in the mind of common people," Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi told reporters here.

"If a doubt creeps once in the mind of people that a particular person does not have a very clean life, such persons should voluntarily withdraw from this process (of drafting Lokpal Bill," he said.

Both Shanti Bhushan and his son are part of the ten-member joint committee that was formed after Hazare's agitation for a stronger Lokpal Bill.

She said, "There is no dearth of knowledgeable and talented lawyers as well as patriots in the country and hence any other person can be made a member (of the committee."
National Spokesperson of Samajwadi Party Mohan Singh said that when Shanti Bhushan himself admitted that he had heard that bribes passed hands for these allotments "then why did he accept the plots."

"Not only his son but even Shanti Bhushan was allotted plot. According to him there was no draw for this allotment and it was done directly. He himself says that bribes passed hands for it...When the bribe was given as per confession, why did he accept such a plot," Singh asked.

The parties were reacting to media reports that the Mayawati government had early this year allotted 10,000 sq meter farmland to Shanti Bhushan and another similar farmhouse plot to his son Jayant Bhushan, who had appeared against Mayawati in the Noida statue park case.