Hazare stir on cards again, PM on target

Maharashtra’s netas across the political spectrum have devised a number of means to keep veteran social activist Anna Hazare in good humour.

Letters sent from Ralegan Siddhi, Hazare’s famed village, to the government secretariat in Mumbai are promptly addressed. Officials from the Chief Secretary down are known to keep a tab on Hazare’s demands and their minions down the line pander to the octogenarian’s whims, lest his tantrums shake up the government.

While the quotidian concerns of his fellow villagers are promptly addressed, Hazare’s biggest demand till date — for the appointment of Lokpal at the national level — remains in limbo.

Hazare is pretty miffed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been going slow on this issue though the BJP won absolute majority on the back of the social activist’s agitation against corruption. Anna, as he is lovingly called, has been telling reporters that he has sent as many as 30 letters to Modi in the past three years and is yet to receive a reply.

Now, the old man is running out of patience. And he is all set to hit the streets again with a protest in the national capital from March 23, Martyrs Day. Apart from the issue of Lokpal, the continuing agrarian crisis is high on his agenda.

With the RSS unlikely to lend its muscle to Hazare this time round, he is looking for fresh support. And the Congress leaders from Maharashtra want the Grand Old Party to let bygones be bygones and reach out to the veteran campaigner.

BJP bettered?

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who was dismissed as a political rookie when he got the top job with the blessings of the RSS, has consistently proved his worth by expanding the BJP’s support base.

Elections to local bodies over the past three years have shown the relatively young BJP leader wean away leaders of consequence from other parties. Now, Fadnavis has set his sights higher and is aggressively targeting co-operative bodies, including banks and agricultural marketing committees, that are controlled by the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.

Though leaders of both these outfits do not see eye to eye, their survival instincts have forced them to join hands and shake up the BJP in Maharashtra. The Congress has made the first strike by weaning away Lok Sabha MP from Bhandara-Gondia Nana Patole from the BJP.

Patole, who had years ago resigned as a Congress MLA blaming the party for farmers’ suicides, is now faulting the Modi government for the continuing agrarian crisis.