New Delhi:
Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the latter's 7 Race Course Residence, apparently, PTI reports, to discuss the Lokpal issue. The meeting came a few hours before Parliament begins a debate on Anna Hazare's Jan Lokpal Bill and two other draft Bills.
Mr Gandhi has been meeting the Prime Minister regularly on the Anna crisis since he returned from the US, where his mother and Congress president Sonia Gandhi was operated upon and is now recuperating. He is part of a four-member committee appointed by his mother to look into party's affairs in her absence.
Mr Gandhi had given a clear diktat to his party that it must refrain from making personal attacks on the Gandhian activist and is also believed to have stepped in last week when Anna Hazare was arrested and sent to Tihar Jail, a move that provoked huge public outcry. At Mr Gandhi's intervention, sources said, Mr Hazare was offered release within hours, though he chose not to accept it and stayed in jail for the next two days.
Yesterday, after a meeting of the Congress Parliamentary Party, Mr Gandhi had expressed concern that the crisis continued and that Mr Hazare had not yet ended his fast. The Rahul Gandhi influence was also evident in a new emphasis on the role of younger leaders - several like Sachin Pilot and Milind Deora were part of the Government's discussions last evening.