A meeting of the Union Cabinet is scheduled for Friday. It is likely to recommend proroguing the Winter Session of Parliament to the President, sources said.
The much-anticipated Rajya Sabha session ended at midnight on Thursday without a vote on the Lokpal Bill.
The Trinamool Congress (TMC), a UPA constituent which had moved a slew of amendments and gave the government torrid time when it vowed to vote against the bill, called the adjournment "orchestrated chaos", almost echoing the Opposition view that it was "choreographed drama".
TMC, BJP and the Left parties had moved amendments for deletion of Part III of the Bill related to the appointment of Lokayuktas in states. The BJP and the Left also wanted the CBI to be part of the Lokpal.
And when the time for voting came, Parliamentary Affairs Minister PK Bansal suddenly came up with a request to the Chair for time to consider the 187 amendments moved by the MPs.
Smelling a rat in the government strategy, Leader of Opposition Arun Jaitley said the government was running away from the House because it was in a "hopeless minority".
"A government which did not have the numbers in the House has consciously first choreographed a debate so that it cannot not be concluded before 12 o' clock," he said.
Jaitley told Bansal that the MPs were ready to extend the session through the night to pass the Bill. He said the government has "no right to continue in office even for a minute".
Under fierce attack from the Opposition, the government defended the move to adjourn the Rajya Sabha sine die, saying it needs time to study the 187 amendments moved by the Opposition on the Lokpal Bill.
"We have to study the 187 amendments brought by Opposition parties as most are overlapping. Some amendments relate to only a part of a clause and not the entire clause, some demand removing an entire part of the Bill," Minister of State for Personnel V Narayanasamy said.
He said after going through the amendments that the Cabinet would take a call on what to accept and what to reject and get back to Opposition parties.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal said the Lokpal and Lokayukta Bill, 2011 was "alive" and will remain on the Rajya Sabha register. "It will be cleared in the Budget session," he said.
He said several of the amendments were contradictory to one another and the government needed time to go through them.
Law Minister Salman Khurshid said "excess amendments and excess talking" led to the situation in the Upper House. Khurshid said 187 amendments would have "totally changed the structure of the Bill".
Reacting to allegations made by the BJP that the government was 'running away' from the passage of the Bill, Khurshid said "who is afraid and who is not, we will come to know after two months when assembly elections are over."
The chaos in Parliament gave more credibility to Team Anna who had earlier likened the fate of the Lokpal Bill to that of the Womens' Reservation Bill.
Team Anna is expected to address a Press Conference on Friday.
Team Anna member Kiran Bedi said, "I had said this will go the Womens' Reservation Bill way. They had the numbers to push it through in the Lok Sabha but not in the Rajya Sabha. The core group is meeting and taking into account these developments. Right now Anna's health is more important."
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