New Delhi: Upset over the attacks on senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan and Anna supporters, Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal will head to Ralegaon Siddhi on Friday to have a discussion on the issue with the Gandhian.

Talking to CNN-IBN, he said, “These attacks have raised many questions. Police role is also under scanner. All of this happened in front of police but they did nothing to prevent this. Were there some directions from the top?.”

He said “by beating our men they are not helping the nation.”

Experts have called for a special new law with tougher penalty to deal with sponsored violence after the attacks on Bhushan and Anna supporters in police presence.

Five supporters of anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare were on Thursday attacked by some workers of the Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena.

They were attacked outside the Patiala House court in the national capital.

This comes a day after key Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan was attacked inside his chamber in the Supreme Court.

The Anna supporters were registering their protest against Wednesday’s assault on Bhushan when they were attacked.

“We were demonstrating to register our protest against yesterday’s attack on Bhushan. We have not intention to fight but these people came and roughed up. They kicked and slapped us,” said one the supporters.

Bhushan was assaulted by three people on Wednesday afternoon, following which the group had claimed the responsibility for the attack.

They said that they were unhappy with Bhushan over his comments on Kashmir, wherein the Team Anna member had advocated a plebiscite in the state.

Bhushan while speaking to IBN18 Editor-in-Chief Rajdeep Sardesai claimed that merely expressing a view that is not liked by some sections of the society does not mean that the statements are seditious.

He stood by his remarks on Kashmir and said that fascist mindset is now increasingly being seen in several people and several organisations. He added that if someone does not agree with any viewpoint then that person has every right to express his opposition, but that should not become a licence to indulge in violence.

New Delhi: Social crusader Anna Hazare today came out in support of arrested Gujarat police officer Sanjeev Bhatt who has accused Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of complicity in the 2002 communal riots.

“What Narendra Modi has done is wrong. It is not good for democracy in the country,” Hazare said, castigating the move to arrest Bhatt.

What was the need for the state government to interfere and arrest Bhatt when the Supreme Court was fully aware of the matter, Hazare asked at a press conference. He was referring to Bhatt’s affidavit in the Supreme Court alleging that the 2002 riots took place with Modi’s tacit approval.

Hazare was responding to a question while addressing the media this morning to announce the roadmap for his nationwide agitation for the Jan Lokpal Bill.

New Delhi: Yoga teacher Baba Ramdev will embark on a “100 thousand kilometer long yatra” today from Jhansi in Uttar Pradesh” to awaken people about corruption and black money,” premier news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) reported. Earlier, Ramdev paid rich tributes at the samadhi of Rani Laxmi Bai on arrival in Gwalior on Monday. Then he left for Jhansi.

The Yoga guru told the media on this occasion that there were “two kinds of people in this country, honest and traitors”. He claimed that all honest people were with him in his fight against corruption and black money.

Aim of the yatra was to awaken people on the issue of “Rs 4,00,000 crore black money stashed in the foreign countries”, he said. The yatra will end in Prayag, Uttar Pradesh.

When asked whether he feared that Centre would deal with yatra the same way it dealt with his agitation in Delhi, Ramdev said the government had learnt its lessons, and would not repeat the Delhi act.

The fight against the corruption was like a “religious war” to him, he said.

Arvind Kejriwal received the Magsaysay award in the Emergent leadership category in 2006. A mere five years later, he has far surpassed that milestone, winning acclaim and notice for the way he conceived and crafted Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement. He talks to Vidya Subrahmaniam about the Jan Lokpal campaign, what it accomplished and why it often became controversial.

The scale and spread of the Anna movement have baffled many. How did this happen?

A movement cannot be created out of nothing. In this case, anger against corruption was at the point of eruption. Then two things happened. One, instead of merely echoing the anger, the Jan Lokpal Bill (JLB) offered a solution. Second, Anna emerged as a credible leader at a time of huge leadership crisis in politics. See, people did not understand the details of the JBL. They simply saw it as a “dawai” [medicine] for corruption. It is the combination of a solution and a figure like Anna — who lived in a temple with no assets — that clicked.

When we conducted referendums on the JLB, we used to try and explain its contents to people. But they said they did not want to understand the details. They just wanted to put a mohar [stamp] on Anna.

How did you communicate your message to such a large number of people?

Technology played a key role in this. When in January this year, India Against Corruption (IAC) member Shivendra suggested to us that we use Facebook to publicise our rallies, I dismissed it saying Facebook has a limited, urban following. But Shivendra went ahead. We had planned a single rally on January 30 at the Ramlila Maidan. But because we connected on Facebook, we were able to conduct simultaneous rallies in 64 cities. SMS texting also played a critical role. Our SMS communication was designed very intelligently. A company in Mumbai suggested we ask for missed calls as a mark of solidarity. Missed calls cost nothing. In March, we sent out two crore SMS messages and got 50,000 missed calls. Then we targeted the 50,000 callers, asking if they would like to enrol as volunteers for IAC. Initially 13 people responded. We sent two more rounds of messages to the 50,000 callers. And in just one week, the number of volunteers swelled to 800.

Surely television played a disproportionate role in projecting the movement.

TV certainly helped, both when Anna sat on a fast at Jantar Mantar and then at Ramlila Maidan. But the media cannot create a moment. They can at best magnify it. The crowds at Ramlila and the crowds that followed him when he left for Medanta hospital were not manufactured.

There have been reports of dissensions within the Anna camp. Also that the deadlock was broken only because Congress/government negotiators spoke directly to Anna.

Anna appointed Kiran Bedi, Prashant Bhushan and me to negotiate with the government. One day I was very tired and Kiran was also not around. So, Medha and Prashant went for the meeting. The next thing we hear [from the media] is that Kiran and I have been sidelined, that we are hardliners, and we are deliberately preventing Anna from breaking his fast. This was disinformation by the government.

You started with the maximalist position of “Jan Lokpal Bill by August 30 and any amendments only with Anna’s permission.” From that to accepting a “sense-of-the-house” resolution that was not voted upon — wasn’t it a climbdown?

When we started on August 16, there was such an overwhelming response that we thought the government would agree to our demands. People wanted the JLB. After a few days we realised that there was a serious leadership crisis in the government — negotiators were constantly backing off. In the last three days of the fast, it happened four times. The Prime Minister made a conciliatory statement, Rahul Gandhi went off on a tangent. Salman Khurshid, Medha and Prashant sat together and drafted a resolution. Next day [August 27], at 1.30 p.m., Salman said no resolution. It became clear to us that what we wanted — Parliament voting on a resolution containing Anna’s three demands — was not going to happen. Therefore we had to change our strategy.

Are you satisfied with the resolution that was adopted? It is not categorical and leaves escape clauses.

We are satisfied because it contains Anna’s three demands. It will not be easy for the Standing Committee to renege on Parliament’s commitment. We will be keenly watching the Committee’s proceedings and the MPs also ought to know that they are on watch. I know, of course, that it is a long journey ahead.

Kiran Bedi told a TV channel that at one point when all seemed lost, a miracle happened: L.K. Advani called her and gave her his word that a solution will be reached by the following evening [August 27]. She also said that the Bharatiya Janata Party, which until then was ambiguous on the JLB, changed its stand and offered full support to Anna.

We met the leaders of the main political parties thrice and as part of this we also met Mr. Advani. However, we have been clear that no BJP leader or leader of any communal organisation will share the stage with us. This is the decision of our core committee. As for Kiran talking about Mr. Advani, please put that question to her.

So are you an apolitical movement?

No, we are political but we are concerned with people’s politics. The movement will always remain outside of political parties and outside of electoral politics.

You will not float a political party?

No, never. We don’t need to get into the system to fight it. We want to pressure the government and assert our rights as citizens. Everyone who has a dream need not get into politics.

Doubts have been raised about the credentials of those who have donated money to IAC. Sometime ago, a citizens’ group from Hyderabad wrote to you saying it was shocked to see some very discredited names in your list of donors.

A number of people have contributed money to the Anna movement. There is complete transparency from our side. Our receipts and expenditure are transparent. But we have no mechanism to go into the antecedents of our donors. And donations are streaming in, making it impossible to keep track. If there is a glaring case, we will certainly investigate it. I know, for instance, that there has been talk of the Jindal group. But those who donated to IAC are from Sitaram Jindal, not the Jindal mining group.

Your entire fight is about transparency and accountability. One of your NGOs, Public Cause Research Foundation, received donations on behalf of IAC and issued receipts in its name. But until August 29, there was no mention of Anna or the donations on the PCRF website.

That is an oversight. We will immediately update the website and provide a link to IAC.

Another of your NGOs, Kabir, received grants from the Ford Foundation (FF). According to the FF, Kabir received $172,000 in 2005 and $197,000 in 2008. The FF also sanctioned an “in-principle” grant of $200,000 for 2011, which you have not accepted so far. Why does Kabir not mention the FF and these specific details on its website?

We did not give the specific details because we also got some other NRI contributions and these were clubbed together. I will make sure that the website gives the break-up.

Fears have been expressed about the form of mobilisation we saw over the last four months. There was anger and impatience and, some would say, coercion in your methods. During the Ram Rath yatra, too, the BJP said people were angry because the mandir had not been built for 40 years. Aren’t you setting a worrying precedent?

The two situations are not comparable. One was communal and divisive and went against the grain of the Constitution. We are not asking for anything illegal. Our demands resonate with the people and our movement has been unifying, non-violent and entirely within rights given by the Constitution. What is wrong if people demand a strong law against corruption? What is wrong if they ask for the Jan Lokpal Bill?

Why did you ask for Parliamentary due process to be suspended? You didn’t want the JLB to go to the Standing Committee.

The JLB was drafted after wide consultations; it underwent many revisions based on feedback. Where is this kind of discussion in the drafting of any sarkari Bill? The purpose of the Standing Committee is to take multiple views on board. But not all Bills reach the Standing Committee, and in 90 per cent of the cases, the government does not accept the Committee’s recommendations. So why the fuss only for JLB which has been widely discussed and debated?

Courtesy: The Hindu

New Delhi: At a meeting with his team in Ralegaon Siddhi this morning, anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare took on MPs yet again saying that MPs who are against the Jan Lokpal Bill should not win in the next elections.

He asked his followers to note down the names of Parliamentarians who have opposed the Jan Lokpal Bill and ensure that they don’t win in the next elections.

“Note the names of those who opposed the Jan Lokpal Bill. Gherao their homes and during elections ensure that these people do not win,” Anna said.

Team Anna met on Saturday in Anna’s village to plan their strategy on the passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament.

The two-day meet will also decide on whether to launch a nationwide stir for electoral reforms and voters’ right to reject or recall.

New Delhi: Aall India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary Digvijay Singh has dared Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani to initiate action against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in corruption cases before going ahead with the Rath Yatra against corruption.

Talking to the media in Bhopal, Digvijay said, “If Advani wants to go ahead with his Rath Yatra, he should, but first he must stop the spread of corruption in BJP ruled states. All the BJP-ruled states – Gujarat, MP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand are marred by corruption cases.”

He said a CAG report on Gujarat has exposed corruption worth crores. “Advani should initiate action against Chouhan and Modi before starting his yatra.” Digvijay said.

New Delhi: Anna Hazare today offered apologies to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his hurtful remarks. He said that it was unintentional because his movement was not against any individual or political party but a corrupt system.

In a two-page letter to the prime minister, the 74-year-old leader reiterated that he would call off his 11-day fast if parliament passed a resolution on three key issues.

“Our agitation is against the corrupt system and if by chance any words uttered by me or any other members have hurt you or any other person then I regret… as it was unintentional,” he said.

In a strongly-worded letter to Prime Minister on Aug 13, Hazare had written: “Your government is trying to crush those who raise their voice against corruption. This is happening more often in your government.”

“You are 79-years-old and are holding the nation’s top position. You have got everything from life. What else do you want from life? Show courage and take some concrete steps.”

New Delhi: No consensus is likely to be reached on the Lokpal logjam today with both Anna Hazare and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government toughening their stand. While the government has demanded a written assurance on Hazare ending his fast, the 74-year-old anti-corruption crusader has refused to budge till his three demands are met.

Hazare has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saying that he would break his fast if Parliament agrees to his three key demands — inclusion of the lower bureaucracy, citizen’s charter and the appointment of lokayuktas in every state — but that he will continue his protest till the legislation is passed.

In his letter Hazare also apologised to the prime minister if he was hurt by any statement or speech made by him (Hazare) or any of his associates.

Hazare’s close associate Arvind Kejriwal addressed the crowd at the Ramlila Maidan and claimed that he was not involved in any secret negotiations with the Government. He and Prashant Bhushan demanded that a special sitting of Parliament should be called on Saturday to debate the Lokpal bills.

Government sources say that the Government is ready to discuss the Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament but Team Anna cannot be given a written assurance on acceptance of their version of the bill by the House.

Sources have also told CNN-IBN that Parliament may debate the Lokpal bills on Friday as Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has received a notice to take up the issue.

The notice has been given to the Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar by three Congress MP’s Sanjay Nirupam, Anu Tandon and Jagdambika Pal under Rule 193 which means there will be no voting on Lokpal bills.

New Delhi: Discussion on all versions of the Lokpal Bill may take place on Saturday, according to report on Friday. The modalities of the resolution and debate is reportedly being worked upon even as Anna Hazare’s indefinite fast for a strong Lokpal entered the 11th day on Friday.

Three Congress MPs Jagdambika Pal, Anu Tandon and Sanjay Nirupam have given notice to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar for Jan Lokpal Bill debate under Rule 193, which does not entail voting.

Earlier in the day, parliamentary affairs minister P K Bansal said a discussion on Janlokpal bill as demanded by Anna Hazare may not be possible in Lok Sabha during the day but added that nothing can be ruled out.

“I am not saying that there will be no discussion but it looks less likely today because of other businesses, including private members’ bill,” he said.

Asked whether this meant that there will be no discussion, the minsiter said that “no, I am not saying that. There will be a discussion but it has to be decided when and how to do it.”

Meanwhile, Team Anna stuck to its stand saying that Anna Hazare will not call off his fast till the government sends a written assurance on the three sticky points whereas the government wants Hazare to promise he will end fast once the debate begins in Parliament.

According to TV reports, the government has asked Team Anna to redraft its Jan Lokpal Bill.

On Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s assurances on Thursday on a discussion in the House and the situation in view of the deteriorating health of Hazare, he said, he would also like the Gandhian to call off his fast.

Asked whether he rules out the possibility of the discussion today, Bansal said he was not ruling out such a possibility because it can be worked out and if a decision is taken, media will get to know.

“I hope Anna’s health does not deteriorate further and he breaks his fast. The prime minister appealed emotionally to him yesterday that the nation is with you. What more can Parliament do,” he said as the Gandhian’s fast for a strong Lokpal entered the 11th day.

Meanwhile, Rahul Gandhi has met the Prime Minister reportedly to discuss the Lokpal Bill issue.

New Delhi: Amid mounting concern about Anna Hazare’s health as his fast continued for the tenth day, doctors last night said the Gandhian’s condition was “stable” but there is reason to worry, new agency Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

“Till now his condition is stable. But there is reason to worry as today is 10th day of his fast,” Dr Naresh Trehan told reporters at the Ramlila Ground after examining 74-year-old Hazare.

Trehan, who along with his team, has been monitoring Hazare’s health every two hours said the Gandhian has already lost over six kgs of weight and doctors will constantly monitor his condition throughout the night.

“He has already lost over six kgs of weight… We will keep a close watch on him throughout the night,” Trehan said. Hazare was 72 kg before he began his fast on August 16.

He said results of various test to conducted on Hazare will be announced tomorrow morning.

Concerns mounted over Hazare’s health after he refused doctors’ advice on Tuesday night as well as yesterday to be put on an intravenous drip.

In the morning, doctors said there was stability in his blood pressure and heart beat. They also said that his ketone levels, which had gone up, has come down.

Meanwhile, Hazare’s attack on Congress leaders dubbing them as “looters” today evoked strong indignation among party MPs at a meeting here in which they opposed any move to withdraw the Lokpal Bill introduced by the government.

The meeting at which senior leader Pranab Mukherjee briefed the lawmakers on Lokpal issue also saw members expressing themselves against being in the “defensive mode” against Team Anna, which, they said, has adopted an “aggressive” posture.

Sources in the party said that a large number of MPs were “upset” with Hazare’s last night attack and they also resented his call to people to hold demonstration outside MPs’ houses as many apprehend that such protests could lead to law and order problems.

Attacking the ruling party and the government, Hazare said last night, “We were of the view that there were some good people in the Congress but all looters have now come together in the Congress and the country has no future in the hands of such people.”

He had made the remarks after his associates negotiating with the government said that the talks are back to square one and apprehended that Hazare could be arrested and removed from the protest site.

Congress general secretary Janardan Dwivedi gave vent to the hurt feelings of MPs saying that such language does not behove a person like Hazare.

Party leaders also underlined that the regret expressed by party spokesman Manish Tewari to Hazare for his earlier remarks against the Gandhian was also in line with the party’s disapproval of personal attacks.

In the CPP meeting, MPs were also of the view that Parliament and constitutional process cannot be overlooked under insistence of any particular group.