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Nine times in the past four decades, a Lokpal bill to create an anti-corruption ombudsman has been introduced in India’s Parliament, and eight times the bill has died. In its most current incarnation, the bill is in intensive care.

Which leads us to a question: while all political parties say they want an effective and strong Lokpal, do any politicians actually want one?

After 40 years, nobody knows what the definition of an effective and strong Lokpal is. Right now, all we know is that the definition put forth by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare is not acceptable to political parties and parliamentarians.

Every time the bill has been introduced, analysts say, political parties found innovative ways to use the maze of the upper and lower houses, standing committee, select committee and joint session to kill it. The most recent debates in Parliament show yet again the creative talents of Indian politicians to frustrate a law that would curb their powers.

The bill, which was passed by the lower house of Parliament on Tuesday, faltered in the upper house on Thursday – in part because some of the same parties which approved it Tuesday opposed it Thursday. On Thursday, upper house members introduced a staggering 187 new amendments. The sheer number of amendments made it very unlikely that the bill would ever be voted on during this session.

Parliamentarians didn’t just set up roadblocks to the bill, though, some of them openly called its very existence a threat to the institution of Parliament. When Rajniti Prasad of the Rashtriya Janata Dal party leapt up late Thursday and seized the bill in his hands and tore it apart, he proclaimed: “Ham aisa bill kaise pass kar de jo hamare hi khilaf hai? (How can we pass a bill which is against us?)”

Now, the Congress Party and its main opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, are in overdrive, accusing each other of killing the bill.

The Congress party has orchestrated a “great fraud,” the B.J.P.’s leader in the upper house, Arun Jaitley, told reporters Friday. “It is now crystal clear that this government does not want a strong Lokpal,” he said.

“The assassins are blaming the victim,” Congress Party spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in reply. “They are the true murderers of democracy and the Lokpal Bill.”

On Friday, politicians from both sides pledged – yet again – that they all want a strong Lokpal.