New Delhi:
Team Anna has taken a hit in recent days - two key members quit yesterday; there have been overt differences with a third, Prashant Bhushan, and his continuing in the team is uncertain. On the NDTV Indian of the Year 2011 stage, chief strategist Arvind Kejriwal admitted there were differences, but tried to play them down.
Magsaysay Award winner and India's "Water Man" Rajinder Singh and PV Rajagopal quit Anna Hazare's core committee yesterday objecting to the movement taking what they called a "political turn". Mr Singh said he believed it was not right for the team to have campaigned against one political party, the Congress, in Hisar.
There was regret when he said, "This is one of the best movements after Independence. But after some incidents in the last few days, I have decided that I cannot be a member of this team anymore...Without any regard for democratic values, if you start campaigning against one party, it is not right."
Sources say the two activists have pointed out that the decision to campaign against the Congress in the Hisar bye-election was not taken by the core committee.
Key Team Anna activists led by Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi had campaigned vigorously against the Congress in the recent bye-election, asking the voters to defeat the party to send across the message that unless it delivers the anti-corruption Lokpal Bill in the winter session of Parliament, bigger elections coming up in the next few months will also humble the Congress. When the results were announced, the party's candidate fared so poorly that he even lost his deposit.
The Congress has shrugged saying this was one election it did not expect to win, but senior party leaders have been scathing about what they call Team Anna's partisan involvement.
For Team Anna, the loss of the two key, respected members comes close on the heels of overt differences cropping up between close Anna aide Prashant Bhushan and other members of the team, including Anna Hazare.
There has been controversy over Mr Bhushan's remark that there should be referendum in Jammu & Kashmir. After the senior lawyer and advocate was attacked in his chamber last week by miscreants, who said they objected to his statement on J&K, other members condemned the attack but said they disagreed with his opinion. Speaking to NDTV, Arvind Kejriwal said most members of the team disagreed with Mr Bhushan and there would be a decision on Mr Bhushan soon. The core committee, he said, would discuss the differences to find common ground if any once Mr Bhushan was back from the US.
(Watch)In the meantime, Anna Hazare seemed to take a swipe at Mr Bhushan when he wrote a blog post on Kashmir, saying "Some people talk incoherent things about Kashmir..."
Admitting there are differences, Arvind Kejriwal said yesterday that these were not personal and that "it is always healthy to have a difference of opinion." Kiran Bedi too tried to play down the decision of the two senior members to quit. "We are team of volunteers and each volunteer is coming for causes of their own. Somebody's coming with a kisan (farmers') movement, somebody for agriculture, somebody for tribal movement, and some for human rights. It's a group of volunteers and therefore you can always volunteer out for your own personal reasons," she said.