New Delhi:
He wanted to meet Sonia Gandhi today but did not get an appointment. Now the Congress has indicated that the party chief will meet Gandhian activist Anna Hazare, though a time for that meeting has not been announced yet.
Anna Hazare is trying to cobble political support for the draft Lokpal Bill that members of the civil society have readied. He met Bihar chief Minister Nitish Kumar in Delhi today and said the meeting was fruitful.
Sharing the stage at a Press conference after the meeting, Mr Hazare was all praise for the Bihar CM, who he described as "at heart a man of the people from the grass roots." And his fellow activist Kiran Bedi said Nitish was backing the Jan Lokpal at the state level.
Nitish himself was more circumspect, saying he would study Team Anna's draft. He also said it was high time the government made its stand clear on the Lokpal. He said he had written to senior Central Minister Pranab Mukherjee, seeking details of both drafts - the civil society version and the government version. "I don't want it to appear that I am exceeding myself...I will discuss with allies too...But we need a strong law that tackles corruption," the Bihar CM said.
Anna Hazare is meeting political leaders across the board to build a consensus on the Bill that members of the civil society have drafted - a key element of which is to include the Prime Minister under the purview of the Lokpal.
After meeting the CPI's AB Bardhan on Thursday, the septuagenarian activist explained that after seven meetings of the joint committee constituted to draft a Lok Pal Bill, two different drafts - one prepared by the government and one by activists - were now doing the rounds. He said, "We want the best version to go to Parliament...There are still a few points that the government is unwilling to bend on, but we find them extremely important for ending corruption and we must include them in the lokpal Bill."
The Congress says it has already made its stand on the Lokpal Bill clear to Team Anna. The highest decision-making body of the party, the Congress Working Committee, has endorsed the other draft Bill, the one prepared by the government, and the government too is attempting to build political consensus for its version by calling for an all-party meeting on Sunday to gather their feedback.
Anna Hazare's frantic efforts to meet as many political leaders as possible is aimed at ensuring that his voice is present at that crucial meeting on July 3. He met Ajit Singh of the Rashtriya Lok Dal yesterday and is scheduled to meet BJP leader LK Advani on Friday.
BJP president Nitin Gadkari has, however, indicated that the party has not yet decided whether to attend Sunday's meeting. Speaking to NDTV's Barkha Dutt, Mr Gadkari said that "The NDA will meet and take a decision on whether to attend the all-party meeting." He said that the government had not sought to include the Opposition when it set up a committee to draft the Bill.
The Lokpal Bill, which is meant to check corruption within politicians and bureaucrats, was being drafted for the first time by a committee that included non-elected activists like Mr Hazare. The joint effort between the government and these activists ended in chaos - ministers on the committee have delivered one draft of the Bill, Team Anna has prepared another. Their irreconcilable differences are topped by whether the Lokpal Bill should apply to the Prime Minister's Office.
(Read: Team Anna's draft of the Lokpal Bill| Government's version) "I have no hesitation in bringing myself under the purview of Lokpal but many of my Cabinet colleagues feel that bringing the institution of Prime Minister under it will create instability," Dr Singh told a gathering of editors on Wednesday.
(Read: PM meets editors, talks Lokpal) Slamming the PM's remarks, the BJP has said his stand on Lokpal Bill is "surprising."
Mr Hazare's team says their draft in its entirety cannot be excluded from the discussion on July 3. "The government will reach out to civil society but no group can insist that their views are the last word," the Prime Minister said on Wednesday.
(Watch: Editors describe what the PM said about Anna Hazare)
Reacting to Dr Singh's remarks, Kiran Bedi, Mr Hazare's close associate in the Lokpal Bill campaign, said they were for an open debate and had approached the government for it. "Every view has to be a reasoned one. Which is why Team Anna was constantly asking for an open debate to be called by the government members or come and listen to people to narrow the disconnect. People's perceptions are being widely published countrywide through reports, surveys and studies, which are speaking the widespread malaise of corruption. These too cannot be ignored," Ms Bedi told PTI.
She added, "The Prime Minister shall perhaps need to go by his personal call of conscience and take a stand like he did on nuclear power."
In the course of his campaign for the Lokpal Bill, Anna Hazare wrote several letters to Sonia Gandhi. In these letters, he reacted sharply to Congress leaders accusing him of having links with the RSS and the BJP. He wrote to Sonia Gandhi that he was hurt by Congress leaders' "smear campaign" and that it was a conspiracy to defame him. In another letter, he also urged Sonia Gandhi to discuss the Lokpal draft in the National Advisory Council.
In her reply to Anna, Sonia Gandhi said he should not doubt her commitment to fight corruption. She also said she strongly believed in the institution of Lokpal and that Lokpal Bill is very much on NAC agenda.
(With PTI inputs)