Tension escalated as Hazare's fast entered day 12 and crowds gathered at the Ramlila Maidan here but, at the end of day, there was still no clarity on where things were headed.
Hazare, 74, has said he would end his fast only when the resolution accommodates the three key issues - having Lokayuktas in every state, citizen's charters for government departments and inclusion of lower bureaucracy in the Lokpal's ambit.
As proceedings continued in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha, informed sources said the debate would be followed by a resolution that would reflect the unanimous sense of each of the two houses.
The distrust persisted with Hazare's aides only a few hours earlier accusing the Manmohan Singh regime of reneging on its pledge to move a resolution on the Lokpal bill in parliament.
Law Minister Salman Khurshid had held talks with activists Arvind Kejriwal and Prashant Bhushan, who said after the meeting that the government had refused to move a resolution over the three key demands.
'This will be a very unfortunate response to what Anna Hazare has written to the PM,' Bhushan told reporters, adding it was now for Hazare to decide if he should call off his 12-day fast.
She said Hazare's anti-graft campaign had brought the issue of Lokpal to the people and the massive support it garnered indicated that people's emotions had galvanised against the 'innumerable scams' and people were 'fed up' of increasing corruption.
The government and the opposition, however, showed a convergence of views on the parliament's prerogative to make laws during the special debate on the Lokpal issue in both houses.
'No one can dispute that Indian parliament is supreme in law making. Law can't be made anywhere else but in parliament. So even when pressure groups build up pressure in the society, we must concede to them the right to build up pressure, but not be provoked by them,' Leader of Opposition in the upper house Arun Jaitley said while participating in the debate.
He said while civil society had a role to play as crusaders, the option to agree or not was there.
Union Minister Ashwani Kumar, participating in the debate, also raised the same point, stating there was unanimity in the house that law-making should be with parliament alone.
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