Thaindian News

New Delhi, Oct 18 (IANS) Two key Team Anna members Tuesday distanced themselves from the anti-corruption campaign, but Hazare’s aide Kiran Bedi denied the movement was cracking up.

Magsaysay award winner Rajendra Singh and Gandhian P.B. Rajagopal formally quit the Anna movement, citing Anna confidant Arvind Kejriwal’s allegedly autocratic ways and the group’s “political activities”.

“I have (in my letter to Hazare expressed) my difficulty in continuing in the team. They told me not to take any decision like this,” Rajagopal told journalists in Kerala.

Rajendra Singh told a TV channel that Kejriwal was taking “autocratic decisions”. He said: “I dissociate from the team. It is turning political. There were statements indicating that, including on Hisar.”

Team Anna had campaigned actively against the Congress in the Hisar Lok Sabha constituency. The Congress was routed in the election, which was won by Kuldeep Bishnoi of the Haryana Janhit Congress.

An India Against Corruption (IAC) activist told IANS that while Hazare, who is now in his village Ralegan-Siddhi in Maharashtra, had got Rajagopal’s letter, there had been no communication from Rajendra Singh.

The activist said both Rajagopal and Rajendra Singh were part of the 26-member core body heading IAC. This also includes Hazare, Kejriwal, Bedi, Prashant Bhushan, Shanti Bhushan and N. Santosh Hegde.

“All decisions are taken collectively,” the activist underlined.

Another Anna aide, economist H.S. Desarada, also alleged Tuesday that the movement had been hijacked by some “for their narrow ambitions”.

He accused Bedi and Kejriwal of having links with “communal elements” like the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“After each meeting they would go to (L.K.) Advani, Sushma Swaraj. I think they were taking instructions from them,” he told CNN-IBN.

Bedi, now in Kolkata, tried to downplay the rift in Team Anna, saying both Rajendra Singh and Rajagopal were only “volunteers who come and go”.

“This is a volunteer group. People have joined as volunteers… If anybody wants to leave, they can,” Bedi said.

Environmentalist Medha Patkar, who supported Hazare’s fast for the Jan Lokpal Bill here in August, too denied there was any major rift within the set-up.

But she insisted she didn’t want to be involved in party politics.

The dramatic developments came on a day when a young man from Jalgaon in Uttar Pradesh was detained in Lucknow after he tried to attack Kejriwal at a meeting with a slipper.

Reacting to the development, Law Minister Salman Khurshid said: “Every day they are contradicting themselves, every day they are indicating there are cracks amongst themselves.”

But the minister said it would be premature to say the Anna movement was falling apart.

Swami Agnivesh, who is not a part of IAC’s core group, has also begun making public statements against Hazare, who earlier threw him out saying he (Agnivesh) was too close to Congress politicians.

There was no immediate reaction from Hazare, who is observing ‘maun vrat’ in his village.

But in recent days, he has criticised both Prashant Bhushan and Kejriwal - his two most vocal supporters.

Hazare pulled up Bhushan for questioning Jammu and Kashmir’s accession to India, and said Kejriwal was wrong to say that Anna was above parliament.