Team Anna referendum on Jan Lokpal Bill begins

Team Anna Hazare today kickstarted a nationwide referendum on Jan Lokpal Bill in 12 Lok Sabha constituencies, including those of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, to drum up support for their version of the bill.

The beginning of the nationwide referendum coincided with the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and is being carried out in 12 constituencies -- nine from UP, two from Bihar and one from Orissa.

Besides Sonia's Rae Bareli and Rahul's Amethi in UP, the activists were also conducting referendum in Mainpuri (Mulayam Singh Yadav), Varanasi (Murli Manohar Joshi), Ghaziabad (Rajnath Singh), Kaushambi (Shailendra Kumar) and Hamirpur (V B Singh).

In Uttar Pradesh, the referendum is being carried out in Lucknow and Ambedkar Nagar constituencies also.

In Bihar, Lalu Prasad's Saran and Kirti Azad's Darbanga constituencies face Team Anna's referendum while in Orissa it is Puri constituency from where Pinaki Mishra is the MP.

Out of the 12, five MPs -- Prasad, Azad, Mishra, Kumar and Singh -- are members of the Standing Committee looking into the Lokpal Bill.