Cong dubs Team Anna as self-appointed preachers

Congress today rebuffed Team Anna for shooting off shot off a series of letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi and BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Lokpal issue, saying "no self-appointed preachers of political morals" have the right to lecture the entire political class.

Congress on Monday rebuffed Team Anna for shooting off shot off a series of letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Rahul Gandhi and BJP president Nitin Gadkari on Lokpal issue, saying "no self-appointed preachers of political morals" have the right to lecture the entire political class.

HT Image

Party spokeperson Abhishek Singhvi said this "preaching tone" is "irresponsible" and also suggest "shocking distrust" towards democracy.

"No self-appointed preachers or guardians of the political morals have the right to preach to the entire political class....As far as individual letters are concerned, it is upon the addressess to reply to it or not.

"The tone and approach of these leters is as if some one is preaching to people from a high. The approach to presume that the entire political class is irresponsible. It's better you directly come in politics than by such attempts of preaching the entire political class," Singhvi said.

Anna Hazare and his team had yesterday shot off a series of letters to leaders, including the Prime Minister, Rahul and Gadkari, trying to put them on the mat on the Lokpal issue ahead of Assembly polls in five states.

UP chief minister Mayawati and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav were the other recipients of letters signed by Hazare and his team members Shanti Bhushan, Prashant Bhushan, Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi.

While in the letter to Singh, signed only by Hazare, the Prime Minister is asked to show some courage to withdraw the "weak" Lokpal Bill and bring a stronger one, the one to Gandhi asked the Congress leader whether his party will dare bring a law on the lines of "strong" Lokayukta law in Uttarakhand.