The Congress may have bowed to public pressure on the Lok Pal Bill, but now that the crowds have disappeared from Jantar Mantar the ruling establishment has struck back with a vengeance at Anna Hazare and his band of supporters.
A six-year-old judicial inquiry report indicting Anna Hazare's Hind Swaraj Trust for financial irregularities has suddenly surfaced in the Capital's corridors of power.
A quiet campaign was also under way to taint the father-and-son lawyer duo of Shanti and Prashant Bhushan by making a scandalous CD public. And from the Congress, a leader of the stature of AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh came out openly against Hazare on Saturday.
In a television interview with Karan Thapar, Singh said the anti-corruption campaign led by Hazare was being supported by the RSS and BJP sympathisers and attacked the Gandhian for praising Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi.
" He is a very simple man, very naive," Singh said. " And people have been exploiting him all over the years." He then went on to add: " I think the way the campaign was launched, Anna Saheb Hazare was drawn into this. He is a well- meaning person, an honest man, but he's extremely naive. That is his fault." These different developments took place on the eve of the first meeting on Saturday of the joint committee formed to discuss the Lokpal Bill, which has been lying in cold storage for 43 years. The day was also marked by a scathing attack on the Bill by the National Advisory Council member Aruna Roy.
In this maelstrom of negativity, Shanti Bhushan, who's also the co- chairman of the joint committee, also found a notice sent to him in February by the Uttar Pradesh Stamps and Registration Department doing the rounds. The notice seeks to recover from Bhushan stamp duty adding up to Rs 1.33 crore for a palatial bungalow the lawyer had purchased in the posh Civil Lines locality of Allahabad.
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