Former senior police officer and now civil rights activist Kiran Bedi said Thursday that veteran anti-graft crusader and social activist Anna Hazare has refused to end his indefinite hunger strike despite the Rajya Sabha announcement of taking up the Lokpal Bill for discussion and debate on Monday (December 16).
In a post on Twitter, Bedi said: "With RS taking up Lokpal on Mon, some ppl requested Anna to convert Frid,Sat,Sun into Dharna & begin Fast again on Monday!Anna did not agree.
Hazare, 76, has been pressing for the passage of the Jan Lokpal Bill in Parliament.
He has been on hunger strike since December 10, and said he will not break his fast till the Jan Lokpal Bill is passed in Parliament.
Social activist Medha Patkar today met Hazare and extended her support to his cause.
Patkar flayed the Congress-led UPA Government for its "inaction" on the issue.
"What has prevented the government from passing the bill?" she asked.
"Had the government passed the bill after the earlier agitation, the Congress would not have faced the ignominy in the recent Assembly polls," she added.
Hazare is holding his hunger strike near the Yadavbaba Temple in the village, under the banner of 'Jantantra Morcha'.
Bedi is expected to join his fast from Saturday.
"People should dislodge the government through ballot if the bill is not passed in this (winter) session," she said, after meeting Hazare on Wednesday.
On her decision to join the fast, Bedi said: "My inner voice told me that it is not fair that Annaji is fasting alone. The people of this country have conveyed a very clear message in the recent assembly elections to the UPA. They have chosen to elect a corruption-free alternative like the Aam Aadmi Party because of the massive awareness created by Anna Hazare's anti-corruption movement since 2011.
The government has said it is serious in passing the ombudsman bill in the Winter session.
However, BJP leader Arun Jaitley, in his reply to Hazare's letter seeking the party's support for the bill, said the government is not sincere in getting the Lokpal Bill passed in Parliament.
In a letter to the social activist who has started an indefinite agitation for passage of the Lokpal bill, Jaitley said the government used its majority in the Lok Sabha to approve the Bill by December 27, 2011 to create a Lokpal "not as an independent institution but as a government controlled entity".
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