Anna meets Chavan,Raj on Lokayukta

After the statewide jan-jagran,I will go to Delhi on June 6.

Activist Anna Hazare on Thursday called for a consensus to make the Lokayukta free of government interference,bring the Crime Investigation Department and Anti-Corruption Bureau under its control,and provide a separate financial allocation for its office.

After the statewide jan-jagran,I will go to Delhi on June 6. For the next one-and-a-half years,I will extensively tour the country and if the Union government does not bring in the Lokpal,I will resort to an agitation at Ramlila Maidan when the Lok Sabha elections are announced in 2014, he said. Setting up a strong Lokayukta would help curtail 60 per cent of corruption. It should be an autonomous body like the Election Commission,High Court and Supreme Court and there should be no government interference, Hazare added.

Hazare began his day by meeting Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan,Deputy CM Ajit Pawar,Maharashtra Navnirman Sena president Raj Thackeray and BJP state president Sudhir Mungantiwar.

Following an hour-long meeting with the Gandhian,Chavan said that while the state government has begun the process of comparing the activists Jan Lokpal Bill with Maharashtras existing law and the Lokayukta laws enacted in Karnataka and Uttarakhand,a final decision on how to strengthen the states anti-corruption framework will be possible only after the Centre clarifies whether it would prepare a model Lokayukta Bill.

Stating that it appears the Lokpal Bill could be passed in the current session of Parliament,Chavan said the law might not make mention of the states Lokayuktas as earlier hoped. In that case,my other suggestion that I have written to the Centre about is for a model Lokayukta Bill to be drafted by the Union government that states can follow while enacting their own laws.

Earlier,Raj Thackeray said that he would support Hazares move for a stronger Lokayukta,and also asked him to concentrate on state issues rather than national matters.

Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray,however,refused to meet Hazare. Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray said they would meet him after corrupt members are out of Team Anna.