Sonia Retorts To Hazare’s Claim That She Gave Nod To Target Bhushans
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
New Delhi: Sonia Gandhi told Anna Hazare that she does not support or encourage the politics of smear campaigns, denying the suggestion by the Gandhian and his group that the volley of hostile charges against their camp by Congresspersons had the party chief's blessings. "Let me assure you that I do not encourage the politics of smear campaign," the Congress chief wrote to Hazare on Wednesday. "You should have no doubt of my commitment in the fight for probity in public life," she added.
Sonia's assertion came in reply to Hazare's letter on Monday in which he complained against an attempt to discredit his colleagues -- Shanti and Prashant Bhushan -- in the anticorruption campaign who are now on the joint committee to draft the Lokpal Bill.
As she distanced herself from the statements that the anti-corruption activists see as designed to derail the campaign against corruption, Sonia also stressed that Hazare and the National Advisory Council were collaborating well on drafting the Lokpal Bill before supporters of the Gandhian unilaterally upped the ante. Sonia, who chairs the NAC and had underlined and identified creation of Lokpal as among the government's priorities at Congresss Burari session in December, said, "The Lokpal Bill was very much a part of the agenda of NAC." She also said that a sub-group of NAC had held consultations on the issue with "representatives of civil society including Shanti Bhushan, Santosh Hegde and Prashant Bhushan who are now on the joint committee, as well as Swami Agnivesh and Arvind Kejriwal, who have been closely associated with you".
Quoting from a letter Hazare wrote to her on April 8, Sonia told the Gandhian that he had himself acknowledged that the NAC had embraced the draft of Jan Lokpal Bill, barring on two counts. She also reminded Hazare of his request to convene a meeting of the NAC to finish the job. She said the meeting was scheduled for April 28. "As I have just mentioned, this is the very course that the NAC was following until the process was, as you know, overtaken by subsequent events," Sonia said in a remark that appeared to refer to the dharna at Jantar Mantar and was seen by many as a suggestion that the decision of the Hazare group to strike out on their own was an afterthought and meant to steal the anti-corruption thunder.
Sonia quoted Hazare's April 8 letter to prove her point that NAC was not running away from the Lokpal Bill. "May I request you to kindly get the draft discussed at the full meeting of NAC at the earliest and recommend the outcome to the government," Hazare had written to Sonia on April 8.
Congress spokesperson Jayanthi Natrajan invoked the principle of "freedom of expression and opinion" to argue that the party could not be expected to gag its members. Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, who has raised hackles in the Hazare camp, took a fresh swipe at civil society activists. Refuting the charge that he was carrying out a smear campaign, Singh said, "I have cast no aspersions on them. There should be transparency in what they are doing. If they demand transparency, they should give transparency."
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