हम एक प्रभावी लोकपाल संस्था स्थापित करेंगे। किसी भी स्तर पर भ्रष्टाचार से सख़्ती और तेज़ी से निपटा जाएगा।

The 2014 manifesto's promise on the anti-corruption ombudsman is two sentences in the governance chapter: "We will set-up an effective Lokpal institution. Corruption at any level will be dealt with firmly and swiftly."

The law already existed. The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act was passed in December 2013, four months before this manifesto, after the anti-corruption movement of 2011-13. What the promise required was appointment and operation.

Appointment took the whole term. The first Lokpal chairperson, Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose, was appointed in March 2019 — two months before the term ended, and after the Supreme Court had repeatedly pressed the government on the delay. For five years the office the manifesto promised to establish had nobody in it.

Effectiveness is measurable, and the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions supplied the measurement to the Lok Sabha on 25 March 2026. Complaints registered before the Lokpal: 149 in 2021-22, 320 in 2022-23, 166 in 2023-24, 292 in 2024-25, and 389 in 2025-26 up to 28 February. Complaints disposed of in the same years: 147, 316, 161, 260 and 336.

Set that against the Lokpal's jurisdiction. It covers the Prime Minister, union ministers, members of Parliament, and Group A, B, C and D officers of the central government — several million people. A few hundred complaints a year, in a country where corruption is a standing feature of public debate, is not evidence of an institution being used. Disposal tracking registration almost exactly each year confirms there is no backlog: the Lokpal is not overwhelmed, it is idle.

The answer does not report what happened after disposal — how many complaints led to a preliminary inquiry, how many to a direction to prosecute, how many to a conviction. Those are the numbers that would show whether corruption is being "dealt with firmly and swiftly", and they are not published in this answer.

A law already on the books, an office left vacant for five years, and an institution that handles fewer cases in a year than a district court handles in a week. Our verdict is not supported.