Hazare steps up campaign,brushes aside Sonia’s appeal

“I thank Sonia Gandhi for her statement (appealing to him to end the fast). Soniaji,tell the government to get the Lokpal bill enacted at the earliest,” Hazare said in a terse reaction to Gandhi’s appeal.

His address to the gathering at Jantar Mantar was received with wide approbation by his followers as his campaign received further momentum across the country.

Under pressure from a surging anti-corruption campaign,Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met with his Cabinet colleague Kapil Sibal late in the night and discussed ways to find a means to resolve the situation.

Sibal,who had earlier in the day held two rounds of discussions with Hazare’s emissaries–Swami Agnivesh and Arvind Kejriwal–is understood to have discussed with Singh the ticklish issue of the demand for notifying the joint committee of civil society members and government representatives and who would head it.

Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar was also present in the meeting.

In the morning talks,the government agreed to the activists’ demand for constituting the committee with five members each from both the sides but there was no no agreement on a formal notification to constitute it and on the demand that Hazare should head it. Another meeting between Sibal and the two emissaries are scheduled on Friday morning.

As his hunger strike entered the third day,Congress President Sonia Gandhi appealed to the 71-year-old Gandhian to give up his fast,assuring him that his views would receive the governemnt’s full attention.

She said there could be no no two views on the urgent necessity of combating graft and corruption in public life.

“I am sure that Hazareji’s views will receive the government’s full attention as we move forward to fight this meance. I appeal to Anna to give up his fast,” Gandhi said in her appeal.

Hazare rejected government’s offer of an informal committee and vowed not to end his protest till the demands are met.