I have already made my views clear, Sonia replies to Anna Hazare

Agencies

New Delhi, 20 June 2011: On a day when the government’s representatives on the Lokpal Bill joint drafting committee met in the evening at North Block to discuss strategy ahead of the next meeting with their civil society counterparts, a copy of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s curt response to social activist Anna Hazare’s letter was released. The letter, dated June 18, says Ms. Gandhi does not wish to add anything to what she had said to Mr. Hazare in her letter dated April 19.

 

In her letter of June 18, Ms. Gandhi says: “I received your letter dated June 9, 2011. Since I was not in Delhi I could not reply to your letter. In the meantime, you have also made it public. I will get information in this regard. As far as the questions about the issues raised in the letter are concerned, I have already made my views clear in my letter dated April 19, 2011.”

 

The letter, which was released by civil society activists, comes in the midst of a tense debate on the Lokpal Bill, with the inclusion of the Prime Minister and the higher judiciary being the two most contentious points.

 

Government sources said the all-party meeting on the Lokpal Bill was likely to be in the first week of July, after the joint drafting committee completes its deliberations on June 30. It may be recalled that the Congress Core Group met on Friday and again on Saturday to discuss several issues, but the provisions of the Lokpal Bill had topped the agenda — there is also concern about Mr. Hazare’s threat to go on yet another fast in the issue.

 

Mr. Hazare’s letter to Ms. Gandhi had complained that the Congress media department chief Janardan Dwivedi had called him a mask for the RSS-BJP combine. Refuting these allegations, he had challenged the Congress to prove its allegations against him, saying he was hurt by them. He had described the accusations as a Congress-United Progressive Alliance “conspiracy” to defame him, so that he loses public support.

 

In her April 19 letter, Ms. Gandhi made it clear that she did not support smear campaigns against anybody. But in her June 18 letter, she is silent on this aspect, merely saying she has nothing to add to what she has already said: in that April 19 letter, she had stressed that the Lokpal Bill is very much a part of the agenda of the National Advisory Council .