Anna Hazare refused to answer questions on the anti-corruption movement today as he left hospital after an eight-day stay. However, many of his long-time associates said they used the time in hospital to advise him to make a course correction, particularly as regards India Against Corruption and its “100 per cent RSS leanings”.
Hazare, they added, has been listening, particularly on the need to shed the movement’s pronounced anti-Congress agenda.
“IAC is 100 per cent a front of the RSS,” said Ashok Sabban, vice-president of the Bhrashtachar Virodhi Jan Andolan Nyas (BVJAN), who has been with Hazare for 20 years. “Anna has promised to discuss it at our meeting around January 10-15.”
His associates have also been telling Hazare to take control of the movement.
“It is not just the Congress that is corrupt. Slamming it daily has hurt credibility… Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi are taking decisions and making Anna speak for them,” Sabban said.
Alauddin Sheikh, who has been working with Hazare for 15 years, said Hazare himself showed discomfort over recent developments. “The IAC is taking advantage of his simplicity,” Sheikh said.
Professor Balaji Kompalwar, who heads the BVJAN Nanded unit, said many IAC activists saw profit in getting overtly political.