Two days before Anna Hazare was to start his fast demanding that Parliament adopted the anti-corruption Jan Lok Pal Bill bringing the prime minister and the judiciary as well under its purview, the Congress and its UPA government came down heavily on the social activist and his ongoing movement by questioning the credentials of those leading as well as running it.
The principal ruling party even went to the extent of portraying Hazare as corrupt by highlighting portions about the septuagenarian Gandhian in a six-year-old probe report. “We would like to ask Anna Hazare, with what face are you talking about fast against corruption?” said Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari. “You are corrupt yourself. We are not saying this. This is what a court-appointed inquiry has said,” he added, referring to the findings of the Justice PB Sawant Committee that had found Hazare guilty of involvement in a graft case.
Both the Congress and the government said Hazare and his supporters had insulted the country’s Prime Minister. Hazare had, in a letter to Manmohan Singh, sought his intervention over the restrictions imposed by the Delhi Police on his fast here from August 16.
The tone of the letter, in which Hazare wondered whether Singh had any face to hoist the Tricolour at Red Fort, “insulted” not just the PM but “the Indian flag and people who gave life for the country’s freedom”, according to Tewari.
Two senior ministers also criticised the way the Hazare movement had conducted itself. Ambika Soni and Kapil Sibal, at a press conference, flayed Hazare’s statement that the passage of the Lokpal Bill would lead to the imprisonment of half the ministers in the Union government on charges of corruption. “Is this any way to talk?,” asked Sibal, who hold the HRD portfolio. “We have all come through a process of election. Just because Mr Hazare has his views, doesn’t mean he can say anything about us and get away with it. If India is a democracy, it is a democracy for me, as much as for Mr Hazare.”
Soni, on her part, recalled that supercop Kiran Bedi, a frontline member of Team Anna, had herself “some years ago” carried out a lathicharge on lawyers in the capital. “So, she should know all about police brutality,” the tourism minister said, referring to Hazare’s charge against the men in khaki.
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As for Aravind Kejriwal, Soni said it was the Congress-led UPA government that brought in the Right to Information Act that made the 42-year-old Ramon Magsaysay awardee “famous” as an RTI activist.
Sibal maintained that the Centre had no say over whether a public gathering in the capital would disrupt public order. It is for the police and local authorities to decide, he said, referring to the reservations residents at central Delhi’s JP National Park -- Hazare’s fasting venue -- have aired against the 74-year-old’s agitation starting August 16 and disrupting their routine by possibly halting public transport. “If Mr Hazare had agreed to hold his fast in Burari (in the NCR’s north), the police might have had a more relaxed view and may have allowed a bigger assembly,” he added, seeking to explain why the police commissioner had decided the Hazare could hold his protest for three days subject to certain conditions. “We have nothing to do with it.”
The tone of the party and the government today contrasted with that adopted by Home Minister P Chidambaram last week.