Social activist and anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare on Sunday declared that he would tour the entire country for the next 18 months and rope in at least six crore people in the movement to transform the systems in the country and for establishing a strong Jan Lok Pal.
Addressing a poorly-attended public meeting here, amidst frequent cries of ‘ Anna Hazare thum sangharsh karo, hum thumare saath hai ’ by a section in the audience, he said the JanTantra Morcha would be apolitical and strive to bring the change from grass-root level.
He said that he would tour all States to awaken people and also hinted at sitting again on fast at Ram Lila Maidan in Delhi. Mr. Hazare himself referred to the small gathering during his speech.
The Patna rally addressed by him recently was claimed to be attended by about 1.5 lakh people.
On Lok Pal
Accusing political parties of running behind power and money, he said many politicians want to carry their chairs to the graves and were not service-minded.
He said that at least 50 per cent corruption would be eliminated if there was a strong Lok Pal. Besides Lok Pal, the people should have the Right to Reject candidates contesting elections and powers need to be vested with gram sabhas to approve panchayats plans on expenditure.
Elaborating on the Right to Reject, he said in case all the five candidates in a constituency were anti -social elements, the people should have the right to reject them. In such an eventuality, the election would be countermanded and fresh polling would be held and no political party would give tickets to such elements.
Former Army Chief, V.K. Singh said that Jayaprakash Narayan in 1975 had described corruption as the biggest disease and even today it continued to be the biggest curse.
He said the common man had not benefitted by the policies and wanted the people to be united to remove inequalities.
Former MP, P. Radhakrishna, former DGP, S.C. Dwivedi and G. Prasad of Sarvodaya Trust, also spoke.
