Maharashtra IAS officers meet Anna to solve dispute, leave empty-handed

The government of India is desperate to get out of the Lokpal mess (a mess many would say ‘of its own making’). And desperation walked into Ramlila Maidan on Sunday evening: three men armed with no magic wand — their master doesn’t have one — but the bleakest of bleak hope that they would succeed in persuading Anna Hazare to end his fast and relent on key points on the Lokpal Bill.

They came. They spoke. They returned at 8pm on Sunday, the sixth day of Hazare’s fast, while 150,000 people cheered Hazare and goaded him to continue the fight. The reason they left: Team Anna refused to relent. No compromise, Hazare’s managers, especially RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal, told the trio of IAS officers from Maharashtra, Hazare’s home state.

And Hazare gave an ultimatum. If the government failed to pass the bill by August 30, India would witness a movement not seen to date, he said. “Lana padega nahi to jana padega (will have to bring or will have to go),” he said to loud cheers. “But after Lokpal we will have to fight for change… for farmers, for education.”

The three officers have had previous experience of dealing with Hazare, especially when he had succumbed to one of his frequent urges — sit on a fast to right a wrong. “UC Sarangi, additional chief secretary of Maharashtra, along with senior officers Nitin Karir and Nanasaheb Patil met Hazare and his team on Sunday afternoon after meeting Union minister Kapil Sibal,” a source said. Bhayuji Maharaj, the religious leader based in Indore, accompanied Sarangi and team.

“When Team Anna made it clear that it would not compromise, the trio returned for another meeting with Sibal but not before promising to return within an hour.”

Sarangi and Karir have extensively dealt with Hazare when they were divisional commissioners in Pune. Both have a degree of integrity that reassures anyone dealing with them. And they share a certain rapport with Hazare that few in the establishment do.    l

Before leaving, they told the media that they were trying to work out a middle path, but till eight in the evening they had not returned.

Later in the night, Kejriwal told the media that Anna’s stand remained unchanged.  He said Sarangi had brought a document with him which turned out to be almost a clone of the government’s Lokpal Bill.

A government source told DNA that the idea of sending the three IAS officers to negotiate a truce with Hazare came from Vilasrao Deshmukh, Union minister of science and technology. Deshmukh as the chief minister of Maharashtra persuaded and succeeded in ending Hazare’s fast on two occasions.

The government, rather the Congress, has been trying everything and tapping every resource/person to get out of the Lokpal mess.

Two days ago, party bosses approached NCP chief Sharad Pawar. When Pawar had quit the core committee for drafting of the bill following allegations of corruption by Team Anna, the Congress had remained non-committal. The party had then felt its silence would cut the NCP’s Maharashtra unit to size as NCP leaders had been demanding more say in administrative decisions in the state.

Now, party leaders have turned to Deshmukh who did not get any lucrative portfolio during the recent cabinet reshuffle by prime minister Manmohan Singh. The party has also roped in Nandan Nilekani, former former Infosys CEO and chairperson of the Unique Identification Authority of India (the Aadhaar project) to criticise Hazare’s movement because he enjoys considerable following among the middle class who form the biggest chunk of Hazare’s supporters.

The government may be trying everything possible to stop Hazare’s fast and work out a compromise but the Anna juggernaut has started rolling throughout the country. In Mumbai, 100,000 people marched in the city to slogans of ‘I am Anna’ and ‘Jan Lokpal Bill’. Chennai, Bangalore and even small towns such as Ujjain, were in the grip of Anna fever.

Hazare told the sea of supporters in Ramlila Maidan to park themselves outside homes of MPs and sing Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram. “Bhajans are very powerful,” he said. But he reiterated that the dialogue doors have not been shut. “Issues can be resolved only through dialogue,” he said. “Even if I am not alive, the fight against corruption should continue.”

Earlier in the day, spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and former Karnataka Lokayukta and another member of Team Anna Santosh Hegde joined Hazare at Ramlila Maidan.

Mufti Abul Qasim Nomani, vice-chancellor of leading Islamic seminary Darul Uloom Deoband, said the seminary supported Hazare in his struggle against corruption. But it could not openly jump into the campaign bandwagon as it was an educational institution, Nomani said.