Indian Express

Bill a farce, can't trust PM: Anna Hazare

PTI Posted online: Thu Jan 31 2013, 17:34 hrs
Patna : Questioning the UPA government's commitment to root out corruption in the country, anti-graft activist Anna Hazare said he does not trust Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi to bring about a strong Lokpal Bill and called the approved Bill a ‘farce’.

"Both PM and Sonia Gandhi can no more be trusted to bring a stringent Lokpal Bill to root out corruption... Had they been committed to the issue it would not have taken two years to take concrete decision in this regard," Hazare told reporters here.

Hazare said he had written a letter to Sonia Gandhi seeking clarification about the Bill’s stringency and whether CBI and the CVC would be kept in its ambit. “But she did not respond to my questions,” he said.

"The Centre is trying to fool the people by going ahead with it,” Hazare added.“If the government goes ahead with a 'weak' Lokpal Bill, I will launch another agitation,'' he warned. Hazare had sat on an indefinite hunger strike at the Ramlila grounds in Delhi last year to press for the enactment of a strong Jan Lokpal Bill.