Political ambitions led to split: Hazare

Political ambitions of a section of Team Anna split a movement that the government wanted to break since its very inception, anti-graft crusader Anna Hazare stated in a blog post on Friday night.

“This time, the team split without the government needing to do anything because of the political ambitions of some people. This is unfortunate for the people of this country,” Mr. Hazare said in the post.

Earlier this month, he split from his aide of almost two years, Arvind Kejriwal, after the latter was insistent upon forming a political party.

“The group that wanted to go the political way had said earlier that if Anna doesn’t want it, we will not form a political party. But they went ahead in spite of my decision to refrain from forming one,” he said. He reiterated that he had never associated himself with any party, and would continue the movement while doing so.

Explaining why he did not want to form a party, he said there were many issues that came with the formation of one. “It is necessary to give an alternative to the people. But where will the money come from, what will be the way to make sure that the people joining the party will be of good character? How will we make sure that they don’t turn corrupt after they get elected? There were no answers to these questions,” he stated.

Mr. Hazare also appealed to the people to donate money to the movement. “All the money that was collected during the Jantar Mantar and Ramlila protests was with the ‘India Against Corruption.’ If people support me with small donations such as Rs. 5 and Rs. 10, we will never feel any crunch for funds. This might help us to open an office in Delhi for better co-ordination of volunteers coming from different parts of the country,” he said.

He urged people to ‘keep the movement a movement.’ “There will still be attempts to break the movement. As the elections get closer, some political parties will try to use my name. The name of the movement will be misused. But I urge you to not trust them, and keep the sanctity of the movement intact,” he said.