'Our anti-graft movement not against any party,' says Anna Hazare

Ralegan Siddhi, Dec 4(ANI): Veteran social activist Anna Hazare has denied that his movement for the Lokpal Bill targets specific individuals or political parties.

Addressing mediapersons in his home village Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra on Saturday, Hazare said that his movement was against widespread corruption in public life.

"We believe that this movement of ours is not against the government, nor is it against the Congress. Neither is it against Rahul Gandhi or the Prime Minister. The movement is against this tendency (to be corrupt)," he said.

Hazare also said that he would stage a one-day protest on December 11 in New Delhi if the Lokpal Bill to be tabled in Parliament was not modified by the Parliamentary Standing Committee to include lower ranks of government employees under its purview.

"The class C and D employees are the ones who interact most with the poor and the underprivileged. They are there in every office. Top government employees work in ministries, but it is these ordinary people who are at the grassroots level. They run from pillar to post in offices again and again, but their work is not done, so where will they go? That is why these employees must come under the (Lokpal's) purview. Then the poor will get justice," he said.

He added that if a strong Lokpal Bill was not passed in the winter session of Parliament, he would start another indefinite fast in the national capital on December 27.

He said that the present government's style of functioning held no promise of a future for the country, citing the luxuries that the government ensured for its high ranking employees, at the public expense.

"Today, 72 per cent of the money accumulated in the people's treasury is spent just on the management, on bungalows, cars, air conditioners. Whose money is it? The people's," he said.

Hazare's new fast will be another headache for the ruling Congress party that will hope to move on from the crisis to tackle key economic reforms shelved in the political melee.

Sensing the slim prospects of passage of the Lokpal Bill in the winter session, which has witnessed successive adjournments for the second week in running, Hazare had earlier appealed his supporters to pour out in huge numbers. (ANI)