'Anna should show respect to House, end fast'

Anna Hazare’s insistence on going ahead with his fast despite appeal from the Prime Minister hasn’t gone down well with a section of the civil society. Saubhadra Chatterji reports.

Anna Hazare’s insistence on going ahead with his fast despite an emotional appeal from the Prime Minister and other top leaders in the Parliament hasn’t gone down well with a section of the civil society.

HT Image

Swami Agnivesh, who has often associated himself with Hazare’s movement on the Lokpal Bill, said the veteran social activist should have called off his fast after these appeals.

“What is the fun in prolonging the fast now? It would have been a grand gesture and a victory of democracy if Anna had reciprocated to the PM’s appeal,” Agnivesh told HT.

Agnivesh feels that Hazare should have shown respect to the Parliament after it debated at length on the issue on Thursday and decided to discuss his Jan Lokpal Bill.

“All his concerns have been addressed,” feels Agnivesh.

He also took a dig at Hazare’s key advisors Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal. “If they are real well-wishers of Anna Hazare, they should have prevailed upon him to end his fast.”

“Generally Anna says he is his own advisor and talks of listening to his inner voice. But this movement was actually driven by people’s voice,” Agnivesh said.

Meanwhile, top Congress managers are upset with Anna aides such as Kejriwal and Bedi for allegedly creating a stumbling block in the way of resolving the issue.

“In the last meeting with the civil society on Wednesday, we found only Prashant Bhushan as a reasonable voice. Kiran Bedi was very aggressive. Had Bhushan not been there, the meeting would not have lasted so long,” said a participant of the meeting.

Bedi, in fact, left abruptly even as there were talks to make a press note of the meeting.

Kejriwal wanted to know what the government was thinking about the Bill, to which he was told he is entitled to know only the government decisions, not its thought process.