No need for fast: Hegde to Hazare

Days after deliberations on the draft lokpal bill by government and civil society members ended in a deadlock, fissures appeared in Anna Hazare's team on Saturday on the course of action it should take. Speaking in two voices | What is lokpal bill

Updated on: Jun 19, 2011, 10:20:25 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Days after deliberations on the draft lokpal bill by government and civil society members ended in a deadlock, fissures appeared in Anna Hazare's team on Saturday on the course of action it should take.

Karnataka lokayukta Santosh Hegde, one of the five Team Hazare members on the joint drafting committee, voiced his dissent on some issues raised by the civil society group.

He has opposed Hazare's plan to resume his fast from August 16 to demand that the prime minister and higher judiciary be brought under the purview of the lokpal's ambit of enquiry.

"Instead of fasting, Hazare and the team should visit various parts of the country to strengthen the people's movement against corruption," said Hegde, who will not be attending the next meeting of the joint panel on Monday due to "prior family commitments".

He had also differed with the majority of Team Hazare on the issue of quitting the joint panel after May 30. In fact, Hegde claimed he had prevailed upon his colleagues not to close
negotiations.

Magsaysay award winner and member of the joint committee Arvind Kejriwal, however, denied there were cracks in the team. "All of us, including Hegde, are with Hazare. These are rumours spread by the government to discredit us as we have huge public support," he said.

Hegde wrote to Hazare on June 18, three days after talks on the draft lokpal bill collapsed, urging him not to go on fast. Though Hazare rejected the advice, he agreed with Hegde's suggestion of going on a countrywide yatra. "Anna will be visiting different parts of the country from July 1," Kejriwal told HT. Hegde won't join Hazare as he wants to finish his pending work as lokayukta of Karnataka before demitting office on August 2, he said.

Hazare's team issued a statement saying that an impression of differences was being created over Hegde's decision not to attend the June 20 meeting. "Hegde had informed Pranab Mukherjee in the last meeting that he would not be able to attend the June 20 meeting due to prior commitments," it said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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