Hazare to launch agitation again

Social activist Anna Hazare has decided to launch an agitation again to press for a Jan Lokpal, resolving farmers' problems and electoral reforms in the country.

However, Hazare made it clear that he would not allow emergence of another Kejriwal this time. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal (then an activist) was working with Hazare during the 2012 anti-graft agitation, but later split to form the Aam Aadmi Party.

In an informal chat with reporters after addressing a public meeting in Uttar Pradesh's Agra town on Tuesday, Hazare said that it would be mandatory for those who took part in the forthcoming agitation to furnish a written-undertaking stating that they would not join or form a political outfit.

''Anyone who violates the undertaking will be taken to court,'' he said.

The octogenarian anti-graft activist who led the agitation against the then UPA government in 2012 said that so far around 5,000 people had already signed up to join the agitation.

Hazare said that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress president-elect Rahul Gandhi were "anti-farmer". "Both UPA and NDA governments are against the farmers....they only support the industrialists," he said.

The activist described the condition of farmers in the country as "pathetic". "The farmers have been committing suicide. They are not getting the right price for their produce," he said.

He also accused the NDA and UPA governments of diluting the Lokpal Bill thereby weakening the fight against corruption. "The talk of fight against corruption by the government is a sham," he said.

The agitation would begin at the historic Ramlila ground in Delhi on March 23 next year. Hazare exhorted farmers and others to join in large numbers.