Guru to rival: how Anna Hazare may spoil Kejriwal's party

Social activist Anna Hazare is set to challenge his onetime protégé Arvind Kejriwal by backing independent candidates in the 2014 general elections, some against top leaders of Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party.

Updated on: Mar 6, 2014, 18:24:24 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Social activist Anna Hazare is set to challenge his onetime protégé Arvind Kejriwal by backing independent candidates in the 2014 general elections, some against top leaders of Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). The independents backed by Hazare will contest on a poll plank of honesty and probity in public life, similar to the strategy AAP plans to use to outsmart mainstream parties.

Social-activist-Anna-Hazare-and-Arvind-Kejriwal-addressing-the-media-after-their-meeting-in-New-Delhi-PTI-Photo

Aspirants seeking Hazare’s backing will have to pass a ninepoint eligibility test that incorporates provisions similar to the AAP, such as no criminal record, an oath to honesty and dedication to work for a public cause. In addition, Hazare doesn’t want candidates to be affiliated to any political party to prevent rejects from other parties from getting his support.

The move comes a day after Hazare publicly backed Mamata Banerjee for the Lok Sabha polls. The veteran activist, who led the 2011 janlokpal agitation with Kejriwal as a key member of his team, has had differences with Kejriwal.

Read: Anna Hazare backs Mamata over Modi, Kejriwal

A committee headed by Hazare comprising social activist Rajender Singh, popularly known paniwala baba, PV Rajagopal of Ekta Parishad and Yashwant Prakash of Prayas, among others will scrutinize the credentials of independent candidates.

“Hazare ji has made it clear that he would support people who have live a simple life like him and are not linked with any political party,” said Prakash. The new Team Anna has been asked to shortlist independent candidates. The team, backed by former Karnataka Lokayukta Santosh Hedge, will come out with a people’s manifesto before the elections.

Read: Riding high on Anna support, Mamata says Cong will get 60 seats, BJP 150 in LS polls

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

Get the latest India News, breaking headlines and real-time updates from across the country. Stay informed about politics, government policies, crime, weather and major national developments.