Anna warns of anti-Cong campaign

Core committee to be expanded with 80 members, says the Gandhian

A four-hour meeting of Team Anna was held here at Ralegan Siddi. It was attended by core committee members Arvind Kejriwal, Prashant Bhushan and Dinesh Waghela.

Later in the day, at a press meet held at his home town, Hazare questioned the logic behind the attempt to enact five different set of laws to control corruption, saying, “It is strange as one can draft one single set of strong laws through Lokpal institution…I think this issue needs to be discussed and we are willing to discuss it.”

For the past few weeks Team Anna had been weathering severe flak from various quarters and the Gandhian, in what maybe construed as an unsaid acceptance of the veracity of some of the allegations, announced that the yet-to-be expanded core committee will have members with their antecedents checked out thoroughly so that only selfless and people with clean background are inducted.

Local media said that the Gandhian beaming with happiness expressed satisfaction at the response towards the agitation launched by India Against Corruption (IAC) despite the hiccups and obstacles “strewn in the struggle to get a corruption-free political structure.”

“The support and the march by thousands people for the cause made the powers realise that it is the common man who has put them to serve the nation.

Vested interest

“However, we have to be cautious in selecting people for the working committee as there may be a possibility of infiltration by people harbouring vested interest. We cannot just pick up people at random only because they are expressing support to the cause,” he said.

One of the key attacks on Team Anna was related to the ‘sectarian,’ outlook of the core committee members. To counter this Hazare early last week said that the core committee would be expanded and “not revamped,” through inclusion of members from various communities, regions and economic strata, “like Dalit, adivasi, Muslim, Christian, north-east etc.”

“The team will have 80 people and not more and we intend to check whether they have criminal cases registered against them … and what kind of outlook they have for people at large’.

He said a meeting will be held in Delhi as soon as possible where the working committee will be selected and the people selected, ‘will be imparted training to strengthen the fundamentals and also make their foundation strong’.