New Delhi: Alleging the government with ‘resisting’ their demand for an
effective Lokpal, Social activist Anna Hazare and his three team members called
off their fast here on Friday with a evocation for public support to show their
alacrity in anti-corruption movement and take it from “the street to parliament”.
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| Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal along with their team members at Jantar Mantar |
With this decision team Anna has threw the ball rolling for
a huge political debate in the time where several political parties were engaged
in acrimonious blame-game war over several issues like the recent power blackout
in India.
On the tenth day of his fast, Team Anna member Arvind
Kejriwal gave a call for Sampoorna Kranti (total revolution) and challenged
Congress to pass the activists' Jan Lokpal laws, including the right to recall,
reject and gram sabhas.
Clarifying public ambiguity about his party and its proposed working
structure Kejriwal said, “ It would not be a party only rather will be an ‘andolan’
(movement) without a high command. It will be a platform where people will
select the candidates.”
“We will go the farmers, to the youth and the unemployed, go
around the country asking people about issues plaguing them and their solutions and they will decide the manifesto, " Kejriwal added.
Anna Hazare, made it
clear that neither he would launch a party nor he would contest any elections.
The team Anna decision might, however, force BJP to recast
its political strategy ahead of 2014 general elections as if believed it
percentage might have backed the movement, believing it would hurts the
Congress most.
Addressing a gathering Hazare justified the move as he said,
“Those who are now questioning our intentions had earlier asked us to first get
elected to the Lok Sabha if we wanted to raise Lokpal and corruption issues.
Now why they are raising questions?......it was when General (retired) V.K.
Singh and other eminent citizens appealed to us to break our fast and provide
an alternative that we decided to drop the ‘anshan’ (fast).”
Reacting to the move, Congress, however, said Team Anna’s
decision was a face saver to end the fast as the issues raised by the activists
were “completely hollow” in substance. While to the contrary some BJP leaders
has welcomed the team Anna decision saying every one free to enter in political
arena.
Its response was guarded. "If somebody wants to join
the political mainstream and fight corruption, we welcome it," said
general secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Mr. Hazare said he would travel across the country to awaken
the people on the plan to give a political alternative.
Interestingly, the Yoga guru Baba Ramdev is due to launch his
stir from August 9 onward over the issue of black money and anti-graft. Reportedly,
arrangements for this agitation are in full swing and rumors are that Ramdev would
reach the Ramlila Maidan in New Delhi with more than a lakh of his followers.