JOIN USThough the agitators were non-violent, they launched a verbal broadside against the ruling leaders, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress party president Sonia Gandhi and Human Resources Minister Kapil Sibal, who topped the hit list.
If anti-establishment slogans dubbed Sonia, Rahul Gandhi and Singh “thieves” for jailing Anna along with “corrupt” leaders like Suresh Kalmadi of CWG scam disfame, Kapil Sibal became a “villain” for being in the forefront of the dialogue between Anna and the government during the joint drafting committee debate on the Lokpal Bill.
Braving the scorching sun and humidity, predominantly lower and middle class people of the capital gathered at the famous India Gate at 4 pm and marched towards Parliament through Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Tolstoy Marg and Jantar Mantar, to converge at a public meeting on Parliament Street.
Curious tourist
Eva, a tourist from Texas in USA, joined the march out of curiosity and said even if she did not know the cause, the spirit was luring.
The popular support was a testimony to the emotional chord that Anna had struck with the local people within the short span of his stay in Delhi. While students of a slum school in Trilokpuri of east Delhi had skipped classes to be there along with their teacher, IT engineer Nitin availed half-a-day’s leave from his MNC job to “contribute to this noble cause”.
In the eyes of the common man, Anna was the anti-graft warrior and the country’s leaders ‘murderers of democracy’. Young housewife Shalini from Shahadara, bearing her four-year-old baby Naisha in her arms, wanted to know why a person like Anna should be put in jail.