Hazare wants FIRs against 14 Cabinet Ministers by Aug

Mar 25, 2012 |

New Delhi

Tags:

Raking up a new issue, Anna Hazare today demanded that FIRs be registered against 14 'corrupt' Cabinet ministers of the UPA by August failing which a 'jail bharo' agitation will be launched even as he pushed back the deadline for a strong Lokpal law to 2014.

74-year-old Hazare's new plan was declared at a token fast at Jantar Mantar for a strong whistleblowers bill after his close aide Arvind Kejriwal named 14 Cabinet ministers against corruption charges were levelled.

"FIRs be registered against the corrupt (Union) ministers by August or there will be 'jail bharo' (fill the jail) agitation across the country. We have to be ready for this. Date will be announced later," Hazare said ending his fast.

Kejriwal had took the names of around 25 politicians, including ministers Sharad Pawar, S.M. Krishna, P.Chidambaram, Praful Patel, Kapil Sibal, Kamal Nath, Farooq Abdullah, Ajit Singh, Sri Prakash Jaiswal, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Vilasrao Deshmukh, MK Azhagiri and G.K. Vasan.

Hazare, whose last hunger strike in Mumbai in December-end last year flopped due to low turn-out, also put the government on notice on Lokpal issue.

"Bring Jan Lokpal or go out of power in 2014 general elections," Hazare said.

"We will show what is the power of Jan Lokpal Bill. I am a fakir (saint). I will show them how much strength a 'fakir' like me has," he said.

Team Anna's new game plan was revealed through a series of speeches by Hazare, Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and Shanti Bhushan towards the end of the fast.

Though Hazare and his team targeted government, they appeared soft on opposition. There were mentions of cases against BJP's B.S. Yeddyurappa and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa by Kejriwal.

Earlier in the day, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's name figured while talking about the killing of a whistleblower in his state.

Bedi then talked about 'getting ready for the fight' during Delhi Assembly polls next year followed by Bhushan who said the government fears passing of a strong Lokpal Bill as they don't want to have their own ministers in jail.

In a bid to augment the movement's momentum and gain more support, Hazare also appeared to overlook reservations against Ramdev over his alleged Hindutva links and declared that his supporters will join the yoga guru's protests and vice versa.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/137049" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-8e5dc7c2110c20b824b1cff9bb64fd13" value="form-8e5dc7c2110c20b824b1cff9bb64fd13" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="92281517" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>