Crucial Team Anna meeting tomorrow to discuss ‘charges’

The core committee meeting comes against the backdrop of a series of allegations against key members like Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi as well as the resignation of prominent activists Rajinder Singh and P V Rajagopal.

The meeting also comes amid a renewed attack on Hazare by Congress leader Digvijay Singh,who alleged the Gandhian’s anti-corruption agitation as well as that of yoga guru Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravisankar were part of an over-all plan of the RSS-BJP combine to divert attention from right-wing terror.

Team Anna has been on the backfoot after several charges – those against Bedi for overcharging her hosts with inflating travel bills,against Kejriwal for depositing donations collected for the Hazare agitation in his own NGO,against the whole team for its anti-Congress campaign in the Hisar bypolls.

Lawyer Prashant Bhushan,another member,also triggered a controversy by advocating plebiscite in Kashmir,evoking strong opposition from Hazare and other team members.

Hazare’s decision yesterday to continue his ‘maun vrat’,which he started on October 16,will mean he will not attend the core committee meeting when his team members were facing attacks and questions of probity.

In a veiled attack on key Team Anna members,Hegde said,“Anna’s strength does not lie in the core committee or the people’s honesty in the core committee.” However,he cited a prior commitment in Mumbai for not attending the meet.

Hegde said he was also keeping a watch on the controversy surrounding Kejriwal and Bedi and remarked: “It’s a nice churning and ‘manthan’ going on…”

Former member Rajinder Singh,meanwhile,continued his attack on Team Anna saying Hazare has deviated from his objective and his team is full of “arrogant people in which there is no room for good human beings”.

Sources in Team Anna said they will discuss all issues involving the team,including the continuance of Bhushan in the team.

Hazare had earlier said the core committee would decide on the continuance of Bhushan in the team following his advocacy of plebiscite in Kashmir. The issue came to the fore after the lawyer was attacked by right-wing activists in his office.

Interestingly,the core committee meeting is being held in Kejriwal’s office while the last time,the meeting – which took place days after the attack on Bhushan — was held at Bhushan’s Noida residence and was chaired by his father and former Law Minister Shanti Bhushan.

The issue also resulted in a flip-flop by Hazare who changed his stand on Bhushan at least thrice. Initially,he said the committee would decide on Bhushan’s continuance,only to retract it in a few hours blaming the media.

However,he removed the blog posting supporting Bhushan soon and later gave a TV interview to reiterate his aversion to Bhushan’s views on Kashmir. He followed it up with a blog post on his views on Kashmir.