Writes to Sonia: ‘Tell your people not to derail process, else we will take to the streets’.
Social activist Anna Hazare today asked Congress party president Sonia Gandhi to advise her colleagues not to try to derail the process of drafting an anti-corruption law and warned her that people are in no mood to wait any longer on the issue.
In a letter addressed to her, he accused “corrupt forces” of having launched a campaign against civil society members of the joint drafting committee on a new law and said the purpose was a smear campaign. “People are very agitated and I fear the consequences if the process (of drafting a strong law) were derailed,” the latter says.
He asked her if she supported the statements being made by her party members against non-government members of the joint committee. “When blatantly false accusations are made, fabricated CDs are planted, then one the purpose is to tarnish reputations. They have not even spared me, even though I have lived a simple life, following on the path of truth.”
In a reference to party general secretary Digvijay Singh, the letter says: “One of the general secretaries of the Congress party has been making many statements in the press in the last one week. I assume he has the support of the party to make such remarks. Most of these statements are factually wrong, which makes one believe his only intention is to create confusion, mislead people and derail the ongoing discussions in the joint committee. Do you personally approve of his statements?’’
He recalled how a day before he ended his fast, Gandhi had said in a letter to him that ‘There is an urgent necessity of combating graft and corruption in public life’ and that ‘the law in these matters must be effective and deliver the desired results’. He then added, “It seems the corrupt forces in the country have united to derail the process of drafting an effective anti–corruption law through the joint committee. Together, we have to defeat their designs.’’
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He also accused a minister (Kapil Sibal, human resources) and other official members of the joint committee of planting false information about its proceedings in the media. “After the joint committee meeting, one of the ministers addressed the press, saying the meeting was good. Subsequently, according to many friends in the media, he held a private informal debriefing session at his house and falsely accused us of having succumbed to government’s pressure within the committee and that we had diluted the law. This was a completely false statement because there were no discussions at all on the law within the committee. His informal debriefing created confusion in the minds of people across the country. We had apprehended such mischievous conduct and that is the reason we have been demanding video recordings of the proceedings and their release immediately after each meeting,’’ said Hazare’s letter.
Both Hazare and his anti-corruption campaign today said misinformation ws being propagated in the media that the August 15 deadline for the Jan Lok Pal Bill was flexible and that they’d accept Parliament rejection of the Bill.
In a statement, Hazare said if the Bill goes to Parliament and is turned down, it would expose the parties concerned. In such an event, “We will take to the streets.”
He said confusion was being created in the media through government sources that his group had retreated in the first joint drafting committee meeting on April 16. “It was rumoured that we agreed to the exclusion of the Prime Minister of India, cabinet ministers and judiciary from the Lok Pal’s purview. Civil society members have certainly not agreed to any of the above. Jan Lok Pal bill version 2.2 was presented to the Government of India at the first meeting. A copy of the same is also uploaded on our website, www.indiaagainstcorruption.org. The bill copy may be reviewed to see that all the rumours are unfounded.”