Anti-Corruption Reformer Anna Hazare on Friday barraged his action against Congress in the Hisar Lok Sabha by-election by asking people not to vote for the party because it has failed to bring the Jan Lokpal Bill. Carrying out his threat issued three days ago, Hazare issued an appeal to the electorate through a CD saying Congress should be defeated.
"We have appealed to people in this polls. Congress should be defeated as it has failed to bring Jan lokpal Bill," he said in the ten-minute CD named 'The Government of the Corrupt'.
According to the schedule provided by 'India Against Corruption', which is spearheading the movement, Hazare is not going to Hisar to campaign against Congress.
As per the understanding reached between the government and Anna, the Lokpal Bill was to be re-introduced in Parliament in the winter session. That starts only in November or so. Why then the restlessness about the Bill? Why the need to threaten the Congress at this point intime? Is this about keeping the Congress on tenterhooks? Is this not an unwarranted threat? Or is it to preempt any decision by the Standing Committee and Parliament to pass a law that Team Anna may not like in its entirety?
Activists Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, Gopal Rai and Naveen Jaihind will leave for Hissar tomorrow and would be there till October ten, when the campaign for the election ends. Another activist Kiran Bedi would visit Hissar on October 10.
The BJP has also been speaking from both sides of its mouth. On the one hand, it makes loud claims of supporting the Lokpal in the media. But when one reads the subtext of its support, one realizes that there are many preconditions in the support. For eg., the BJP does not want the PM included under the Lokpal unconditionally. The BJP also doesn’t want the judiciary to be covered under the Lokpal. Likewise on the subject of the Lokpal Bill also giving birth to Lok Ayuktas in the states, the BJP has suggested a clever scheme – make it an enabling provision – meaning that if the state government wants to adopt the same bill, it can. But there is nothing that compels it to! Even on phone tapping powers of the Lokpal, the BJP has opposed Team Anna’s provisions.
So why does Anna want to oppose only the Congress? Is Congress the only corrupt party in the country? Are we to understand that Anna will support the corrupt BJP regime in Uttarakhand which also goes to the polls in 2012? Remember the CAG report against the state government on the Maha Kumbh Mela matter? Of course, one shouldn’t jump to conclusions basis only a CAG report, but Anna seemed to be more than willing to accept the CAG’s observations on the 2G scam. Will Anna ignore the state of affairs in the state which led to the sacking of the CM recently? By opposing the Congress in Uttarakhand, will Anna not indirectly be asking the people to vote for the corruption-tainted BJP government there? What about UP? Is Anna going to support the divisive regime of Mayawati led BSP? What about the Mulayam led SP and the badly fractured BJP against the Congress – which is a small party in the state anyways? Or will Anna ask people to vote against the SP and BSP also – both of which seem to be opposed to Anna’s Jan Lokpal Bill? What about Gujarat – where the Modi government has wielded dictatorial powers to curb any form of dissent against it? Is Anna going to ask people to vote for the BJP simply because it wants to oppose the Congress?
If Anna wants to enter politics, he should enter it as a political party. Let him set up a party whose core philosophy is to fight corruption. The problem is that when you set up a political party, you need to take a stand on several other issues as well. Maybe Anna doesn’t want to do that. Because the more you take a particular stand on these issues, the more you alienate some or the other section of the
society. In the end, all political parties alienate large sections of the public – which is why most candidates don’t get more than 50% of the votes in any election…..maybe Anna doesn’t want to risk all that.
The real truth is that Anna’s opposition to the Congress by name seems to reflect a larger political orientation that he has. For every 100 words he speaks against the Congress, he speaks less than one against the BJP. Instead of playing surrogate politics, it would be good if he entered politics directly and made his stand on multiple issues clear.
