Not govt but own team caused rift: Anna

Anna Hazare on Friday broke his silence on the rift in his former team, blaming a "group" in his team for the decision to float a political party despite his disapproval. He also cautioned voters against "any party" using the anti-graft movement's name for garnering votes.

In his new blog annahazarethinks, Hazare, who in the past blamed the "government machinery" for trying to create a rift in his team, gave a clean chit to the government this time round for the split. "Unfortunately our team has been divided into two factions before the Lokpal came into being. One faction wants to take the path of movement while other wants to enter politics. There were many people in the government who wanted to break the team. The government had incessantly tried create a rift in the team for last two years without any success. But now the team has split without any efforts by government because some people decided to tread on political path..." he wrote.

"The group repeatedly said that if Anna tells us so we will not form a political party. But they went ahead with their plan despite my decision not to form any political party. Some times they also said that they were forming a political party only because Anna directed us to do — this is not right," Hazare wrote.

He said he had posed several questions to his pro-party associates but never got any answer.

Hazare also said that he was confident the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 will force the government to pass the Lokpal Bill. "I am confident that the government will have to pass the Lokpal Bill before 2014. There were no polls in August 2011 but now Lok Sabha polls are scheduled to take place 2014. It will force them to pass the Bill," he wrote.

... contd.

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