As Gandhian Anna Hazare broke his 12-daylong fast here on Sunday , his core team kept up its pressure on the government and Parliament to get the Jan Lokpal Bill passed swiftly.
Team Anna decided to push the matter “aggressively“ at a meeting on Sunday afternoon, asking the government to convene a special session of Parliament in a month's time to pass the Bill, by when it hoped the standing committee too would have finished its work.
“We will be in constant touch with the standing committee and keep reviewing the situation regularly,“ said the chief Team Anna strategist, Mr Arvind Kejriwal.
Another A-Team member, Ms Kiran Bedi, is reportedly in touch with the BJP to keep up the pressure on the government, sources said.
But the indications are clear that Team Anna will not confine its agitation to the Lokpal issue.
In an attempt to broadbase his agitation, Mr Hazare said on Sunday that next on his agenda now were a slew of electoral reforms, particularly the “right to reject“ and “right to recall“ elected representatives as this would significantly lower corruption due to the use of money in elections.
Team Anna is now in no mood to disappear after the Lokpal agitation.
“There should be a right to recall elected representatives and a column for right to reject those contesting elections. Once a candidate has spent `10 crore and the election is cancelled, then right sense will prevail... Let's see how much money they can spend,“ said Mr Hazare.
Swami Agnivesh said the video footage was “doctored and concocted” and was part of a smear campaign against him.
Declaring that the “people's parliament“ was bigger than Parliament in New Delhi, Mr Anna Hazare said: “We can now move ahead with implementing laws and the Constitution drafted by Dr B.R. Ambedkar,“ he said.
Besides electoral reforms, Mr Hazare said his future agenda would include working for farmers, improving the nation's education system and protecting the environment.
The rift in Team Anna continued to widen. Ms Kiran Bedi and others targeted fellow activist Swami Agnivesh on Sunday, attacking him over a controversial video posted on YouTube in which he is purportedly telling a person alleged to be a Union minister that the government should act tough with the fasting Gandhian.
Swami Agnivesh, however, claimed the video footage was “doctored and concocted“. He said this was a “smear campaign“ unleashed against him, and denied that he had talked to the Union minister, Mr Kapil Sibal, who had been involved in negotiations during the initial stages of the standoff between Team Anna and the government.
Speaking to the media, Ms Bedi alleged Swami Agnivesh was caught on camera where he was asking a person (believed to be Mr Kapil Sibal): “Maharaj, aap inko itna kyu de rahe hai (Maharaj, why are you giving them so much)?“ She criticised Swami Agnivesh for being “unethical“.
The Union law minister Mr Salman Khurshid, in an interview to a television news channel, said that while the government might have made “errors of judgement“ in handling Mr Hazare's fast, it had not committed any “mistakes“. He said: “Errors of judgement are made whenever you are in a difficult situation.
Errors of judgement are not mistakes.“
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