Public divided over Team Anna’s political strategy

Standing in a sea of humanity at Jantar Mantar — where Team Anna broke its indefinite fast and announced a political alternative to its demands — Chitra Bhatia, a B Tech student of IP University, was visibly happy.

Standing in a sea of humanity at Jantar Mantar — where Team Anna broke its indefinite fast and announced a political alternative to its demands — Chitra Bhatia, a B Tech student of IP University, was visibly happy.

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“If corrupt people and murderers can be ministers then why can’t good people head to the Parliament too? Till now, we hardly had a choice, but now the people of India can select the right and good candidates,” Bhatia said.

While she supported Team Anna’s decision to enter politics, public opinion was divided over the way the fight for Lokpal was dumped midway.

Krishna Bhaiyya, a real estate dealer from Dwarka, said, “There are already so many parties — all of them corrupt. For all you know, these people might become like others too.”

This is, however, what Team Anna claimed to refrain from as it offered a ‘political alternative’ by taking its anti-graft agitation from the roads to Parliament as it ended the indefinite fast.

Former Army chief, VK Singh, offered coconut water to Team Anna members to break each of their fasts.

While Anna Hazare had been fasting from Sunday, India Against Corruption members Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Gopal Rai along with 350 others had been abstaining from food since July 25.

Stating that he had heeded to the appeal by eminent persons across the country for an ‘political alternative’, Hazare said, “I will watch how these people work.” Laying emphasis on a clean character and the ability to deal with insult, he added, “If you need change, be ready for sacrifice.”

Kejriwal also joined the fervour. “The movement will now be on the roads as well as inside the Parliament.”

“If in the next one-and-a-half years (before the general elections) the Congress passes the Jan Lokpal Bill, a law for Right to Recall, Right to Reject and one for gram sabhas, we will withdraw our decision of getting into politics,” Kejriwal said.

“Our aim is to challenge the political establishment at every step. For example, we will put every single donation and expenditure on our website and then ask them to do the same,” he added.