Pune:
As the Congress gears up for assembly elections in five states including Uttar Pradesh, Kiran Bedi today said that anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare would not campaign in the states going to polls since his health did not permit him to do so.
"He will not go anywhere till he recovers fully," the Team Anna member said after meeting Anna Hazare at Sancheti Hospital where he was admitted last Saturday. Anna will decide on his next move after a month, said Ms Bedi. Till then, he will follow the doctors' advice of complete rest.
After Anna ended his fast on the second day of the protest at the MMRDA Grounds in Mumbai on December 28, he declared that he and his team would campaign against the Congress in the upcoming assembly polls over the government's "failure" to bring an "effective and strong" Lokpal Bill.
But the 74-year-old anti-corruption crusader is in hospital for what doctors say is "chest congestion" and has been advised bed rest for a month. Close aides are wary of exposing him to the rigours of a campaign until he recovers completely.
Team Anna's core committee will meet in Delhi on Saturday to decide on the future course of action, Ms Bedi said. Anna will not attend but he has shared his views and the committee will take a collective and sensible decision, she said.
Doctors treating Anna today said that they would decide if he could be discharged from hospital after tests on Friday. They said that his reports were normal at the moment and expressed hope that there would be no need for further hospitalisation. He even exercised today, they pointed out. But it was very important for Anna to take proper rest, said Dr K H Sancheti.
According to Ms Bedi, Anna was on antibiotics and drips.
The development will clearly come as a breather for the Congress as it prepares for polls in the five states, particularly in Uttar Pradesh where Rahul Gandhi has hit the campaign trail aggressively over the past few months. Elections to state assemblies in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur will be held in phases between January 28 and March 3.
The government has been battling criticism from Team Anna as well as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the manner in which it handled the Lokpal Bill in the Rajya Sabha, which was adjourned without a vote on the legislation. "It was the government's onus to ensure that the Bill was passed in the Rajya Sabha. They failed to do their homework," Kiran Bedi had said.
Team Anna has described the Lokpal which the government is trying to establish as "toothless" and has criticised the attempt to keep the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) out of the anti-corruption ombudsman's control.
(With PTI inputs)