New Delhi:
After social activist Anna Hazare, in his letter, charged her party with running a smear campaign against him, Congress President Sonia Gandhi today in a terse reply indicated her unhappiness and said she had already made her views clear on the issue in an earlier communique.
In her letter, she said, "Since I was not in Delhi I could not reply to your letter. In the meantime, you have also made it public. I will get information in this regard. As far as the questions about the issues raised in the letter are concerned, I have already made my views clear in my letter dated April 19, 2011".
Mr Hazare had, upset over Congress leaders calling him a mask of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), written to Mrs Gandhi saying that party leaders and ministers were "telling lies" to defame him and dared them to make public any evidence to prove it.
In a three-page letter, Hazare had said such remarks were part of a "conspiracy" to defame him and ensure that those people who supported him during the April protest did not do so in future.
(Read: Congress leaders lying to defame me, says Anna Hazare in letter)His letter came in the backdrop of Congress general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi dubbing him as a "mask" of BJP and senior Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee calling his agitation against corruption supported by the RSS.
Here is Sonia Gandhi's reply to Anna Hazare: