Social activist Anna Hazare's 13-day-old fast for the passage of a Jan Lokpal Bill finally ended on Sunday when the Gandhian accepted coconut water mixed with honey from two girls at the Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi.
“We have only won half the battle,” Mr Hazare said, while addressing thousands of his supporters who had gathered at the Grounds.
“Electoral reform is next on my agenda… I have only deferred this fast, not given it up. There should be the ‘right to recall' an elected representative and the ballot paper should have a column with the ‘right to reject” if there is no suitable candidate,” he said, reading out his future course of action from a piece of paper.
Fight for change
Mr Hazare also talked about educational reforms, and of taking up the cause of farmers and labourers as well as environment protection. “We have to think over these things in the fight for change. We should not keep quiet even if the whole of Jan Lokpal Bill is passed,” he said.
He thanked Parliament for supporting his three demands, but made it clear that ‘people's Parliament' was bigger than the ‘Parliament in Delhi'. Dismissing charges that his campaign was against the Constitution, he said that change must come through Constitutional means.
Team Anna also reiterated that the ‘movement' had not ended. “We hope that the Government convenes a special session of Parliament within a month's time to pass the Lokpal Bill,” said senior lawyer Mr Prashant Bhushan, a member of Team Anna.
Mr Hazare was admitted to Medanta Medicity in Gurgaon, under the care of cardiologist Dr Naresh Trehan, even as celebrations broke out across the country.
The Law Minister, Mr Salman Khurshid, a key negotiator with Team Anna, defended the Government's handling of the issue. He told a news channel that there may have been “errors of judgment” in handling Hazare's fast, but that there were no mistakes.
On questions raised over the Prime Minister's ‘weak' leadership, Mr Khurshid said, “Every step was led by him and every decision was led by him… For four days, he sat there almost like he was in a control room monitoring every step….”
The Parliamentary Standing Committee that is looking into the Lokpal Bill is headed by Dr Abhishek Manu Singhvi. Among the other 31 members are Mr Lalu Prasad, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, Mr Manish Tewari, Mr Ram Jethmalani, Mr Amar Singh and Ms Deepa Dasmunshi.