Delhi targets Anna's armour

New Delhi, Aug. 14: The Centre and the Congress today mounted a multi-pronged offensive against Anna Hazare, seeking to question his moral credentials, the choice of language used against the Prime Minister and the constitutional propriety of holding the legislative process to ransom.
The flurry of charges flew as the clock began ticking on the launch of an indefinite fast proposed by the Anna group from August 16, a day after Independence Day, to demand the acceptance of its version of a bill to set up the Lokpal, the anti-corruption watchdog.
The pattern of the government's response ' the Prime Minister had last night signalled a tough stand by suggesting that the protest would be treated as a law-and-order matter ' indicates that it is exploring options whether the Anna protest could also be handled the same way as Baba Ramdev was dealt with.
The Ramdev fast was broken up through decisive police action and disclosures that discredited his campaign. Although the matter reached the court, the government weathered the storm that followed, partly because of a series of damaging revelations about the yoga practitioner and his key aide and aided by Ramdev's own intemperate comments.
The Centre's response today suggested that it was preparing to face the backlash that is expected to unfold from August 16. Till late this evening, the government appeared to be convinced that the fast could not be allowed to go on.
Delhi police have set a series of conditions to allow Anna to hold the fast at JP Park. So far, Anna has not agreed to the two key conditions ' that he limit the protest to three days and the number of people to 5,000.
An undertaking accepting all the conditions needs to be filed by tomorrow for the police to give permission. If Anna goes ahead with the programme without police permission, it becomes an illegal event vulnerable to action.
The Congress and the Centre seemed to have started to factor in the possibility of such an eventuality and listed a series of charges against Anna.
The stepped-up attack came at special briefings arranged amid twin fears: one, Hazare might be able to mobilise enough people and create another television spectacle; two, there could be repercussions if the fast, entangled in a dispute over venue, is not allowed to take off.
The Centre's seriousness was reflected in the way finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had to advance his return from Calcutta to Delhi on an urgent call from the Prime Minister to attend a government meeting on the fast.
Mukherjee, who had to advance his departure from Calcutta by five hours and catch the 1.30pm Delhi flight, accused Hazare of "challenging" the Constitution and Parliament. "Such a step is not acceptable," he told reporters in Calcutta.
If Mukherjee stuck to the most potent charge, the party dug up an old charge to keep the pot boiling.
Congress spokesperson Manish Tiwari recalled how the Justice Sawant Commission, set up in 2003 to probe political graft in Maharashtra, had reported funds diversion from Hazare's trust for his birthday celebrations.
Tiwari said the commission had called Hazare's aides corrupt and criminal and accused them of blackmail, misappropriation of property and failure to submit the trust's accounts.
Hazare denied the charge and asserted he would continue his agitation till the Congress was able to prove the allegation. ( )
Minister Ambika Soni targeted Hazare over his letter to Manmohan Singh that asked the Prime Minister "what face" he had "to unfurl the national flag" tomorrow at the Red Fort.
Soni said that never before had any Prime Minister been insulted in this manner on the eve of Independence Day, while Tiwari said Hazare had insulted the Tricolour and the lakhs of Indians who had sacrificed their lives for freedom.
"People think Hazare is a Gandhian. Is hitting a person like Manmohan Singh below the belt a Gandhian way of communication?" Soni asked. "We have engaged with him, given him respect, but he is working on a pre-conceived agenda to create anarchy in the country."
Minister Kapil Sibal defended the police stand that Hazare could not have a free hand in choosing the venue for his indefinite fast. "The right to protest is not absolute. You cannot choose time and venue. And he is asking people not to work on August 16; is that not a call for revolt?" Sibal asked.
Told that the government had allowed several indefinite fasts at Jantar Mantar, he said: "If one or a few individuals sit on fast, there is no law- and-order problem, unlike when 50,000 people are mobilised."
Tiwari said Hazare's movement was backed by "armchair fascists, over-ground Marxists and apolitical anarchists".

I am sure the British must be wishing that they had been as tough on Mahatma Gandhi and his supporters as the present deshi government is on Anna and his supporters.They must be wistfully thinking then they would never have had to leave India.
Kapil Sibal talks of revolt when Anna asks people not to go for work on 16th. Has he forgotten the Non-cooperation and Quit India Movement launched by Gandhiji? He probably has as the Congress party has forgotten everything else taught by Gandhiji and learnt only what he did not teach - how to earn money by corrupt means.
As far a insulting the PM is concerned, he has brought the insult on to himself.
We know he is honest and he offered to bring the office of the PM under the purview of the Lokpal. However, he preferred to listen to corrupt people who realized that if the PM is brought under the Lok Pal, they could not escape. So like brothers in crime, they have all ganged up, all MPs, all parties, except the CPM.
So what does it tell you?
The whole gang is corrupt except the CPM