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Anna stage too hot for political friends by Archis Mohan

Anna Hazare today appeared to betray an ambition to become the next Jaya Prakash Narayan if not a Mahatma Gandhi II, asking the Opposition to join his agitation if the UPA defeated the efforts to enact a strong Lokpal.

He asked the Opposition to hit the streets and fill the jails, sounding a little like JP who had brought the Right and the Left together in his 1970s campaign against the day’s Congress government.

“If the government hesitates to pass a strong Lokpal bill or rejects your suggestions, and if you (the Opposition) fall short of numbers... you can join us with all your parties and workers and come to the streets for a larger campaign,” Hazare said at Jantar Mantar before an estimated crowd of 7,000 on one of the coldest days this winter.

“Let us see how the government does not do it. We will ensure that no jail in the country remains empty, such will be our campaign.”

Still, it seemed a case of one step forward and two steps back, for neither Hazare nor aide Arvind Kejriwal could resist calling the political class names even while sharing the dais with them.

As he criticised the parliamentary standing committee’s “weak” Lokpal draft, Hazare hit out at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, home minister P. Chidambaram and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi.

In a dig at Rahul, who last night visited a village near Lucknow, Hazare said “spending one day in a hut is not enough” to become Prime Minister and that Rahul should “spend months doing it”.

But he also condemned the entire political class as traitors, appearing to annoy the politicians present.

When her turn to speak came, the CPM’s Brinda Karat said: “Terming all politicians as corrupt from this platform is not proper; the country needs good politicians also.”

As for the Opposition unity Hazare sought, it seemed to cut both ways.

Representatives from nearly all major Opposition parties, barring the Bahujan Samaj Party, were present. However, the BJP’s Arun Jaitley, the Left’s A.B. Bardhan, D. Raja and Brinda Karat, Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav and the rest were united in reminding Team Anna that lawmaking was Parliament’s prerogative.

The leaders also agreed nearly in unison to leave the dais when Kejriwal’s weakness for playing to the gallery got him to start grilling the politicians. Jaitley was seen helping the elderly Bardhan onto his feet as Kejriwal ignored the politicians’ call to trust Parliament with creating a strong Lokpal.

The BJP leader lauded the movement for bringing the issue of a strong Lokpal to the forefront. But when Kejriwal insisted that the politicians make their party lines public on every detail of the standing committee’s draft, Jaitley cut in to say: “There isn’t much difference of opinion between you and us (on the Lokpal). There may be differences on some details. Trust Parliament to take care of these. Parliament also does good work.”

Kejriwal, however, shot back “our fear is that the devil lies in the details” and continued with his line of argument. He had earlier ignored appeals from CPI leaders Raja and Bardhan to recognise Parliament’s primacy.

Jaitley reached out to the 84-year-old Bardhan to help him get up as the others too seemed convinced it was time to leave. They stayed back after being requested to listen to Hazare’s speech.

The 74-year-old asked them to join his movement but signed off with a couplet that described politicians as guardians who had become traitors and were a bigger threat to the country than thieves or external enemies.

The politicians agreed with many of Team Anna’s demands, such as the inclusion of the Prime Minister and the lower bureaucracy within the Lokpal’s ambit. They agreed that the standing committee had ignored the “sense of the House” resolution that both Houses of Parliament had passed in August.

The politicians, however, favoured a separate mechanism to check corruption in the judiciary. They also cautioned Team Anna that it should not try to force its agenda down anyone’s throat.

“They should not think the entire world’s wisdom resides in some 9-10 people. It is unfair to demand your draft must be accepted with all its commas, semi-colons and full stops and to accuse anybody who doesn’t support your draft of being a supporter of corruption,” Bardhan said.

He said corruption wasn’t the only issue facing the nation. “All those gathered here seem to have come from relatively well-off families. But there are fights of agricultural labourers, of joblessness, of inflation, which this Lokpal will not solve. I hope you will join those fights as well.”

The Samajwadi Party’s Ramgopal Yadav drew loud jeers from the audience when he said Team Anna shouldn’t expect its version to be accepted verbatim. Bardhan’s suggestion that it may take a year or two to get a strong Lokpal enacted too provoked hooting.

The police reckoned the gathering did not cross 10,000 but an officer said: “Since it wasn’t a captive audience but a floating one, it’s possible that 25,000 attended.”

The police counted about 1,000 journalists, including 600 TV and still photographers. In a sea of Tricolours, banners reading “Google” and “Facebook” could be spotted.

Before starting his daylong fast at Jantar Mantar, Hazare visited Rajghat.