Aruna & team attack Hazare
A clear divide in the civil society movement against corruption became manifest with National Campaign for People’s Right to Information (NCPRI) members launching a hard hitting attack on Anna Hazare.
NCPRI founder and NAC member Aruna Roy complained that “no one group can say they are right; nor can any one group claim parliament is a biased and anti-people institution”.
Mr Anna Hazare should not deride democratic institutions because “losing trust in Parliament would result in Indian democracy entering a very dangerous phase. Rather, we need to make democratic institutions work for us,” she asserted.
Critical of the Hazare camp’s assertion that sending the government Lokpal Bill to the parliamentary standing committee was a waste of time, Ms Roy said these committees were significant and several changes in the existing RTI bill had been incorporated when they had deposed before the parliamentary standing committee.
In an obvious reference to Mr Hazare setting a deadline to pass the Jan Lokpal Bill, she said, “I think Annaji is ill-advised... anyone who says my view should be the only view is wrong.”
Mr Shekhar Singh, member of the NCPRI, adopted a more strident tone when he said, “Anna has historically had close links with the RSS while Arvind Kejriwal is known to be close to the BJP.”
Commenting on their source of funding for the Team Anna campaign, “They have declared their sources of funding on the website. They admit to have taken funds from the Tatas and the Jindals. We can debate on whether they should have done so or not.”
Nor was he happy with the tactics being adopted by Team Anna, saying, “This is not a model that can be replicated.”
Mr Shekhar Singh added: “The government must realise this is a political issue which requires a political agreement. We (NCPRI) are not willing to be their intermediaries.”
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