Not long after his controversial, tongue-in-cheek remark over the slapping incident involving Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare has once again taken Pawar head-on in his latest blog posting on Tuesday.
In a strongly-worded post, Hazare signalled that after the Jan Lokpal movement, he would launch a movement to compel the state government to take action against three NCP ministers indicted in 2005 by the Justice PB Sawant Commision.
Hazare said on his blog (https://news.indiaagainstcorruption.org/annahazaresays/) that Pawar had time and again come to the rescue of the corrupt.
“The government is not willing to take action against them because they are Sharad Pawar’s men,” he stated on the blog.
The one-man Justice Sawant Commission was formed after Hazare had made a series of allegations against four ministers in the erstwhile Sushilkumar Shinde cabinet in 2003. The commission had indicted three NCP ministers — Sureshdada Jain, Nawab Malik and Padamsinh Patil — who later resigned from the cabinet.
Hazare unearthed another old issue, when he wrote, “As agriculture minister, Pawar had imported rotten wheat, and since it was not edible, the wheat was buried in huge pits. Crores (of rupees) of public money was wasted, but none of the politicians got angry about it?”
Hazare questioned the failure of political leaders and their supporters when farmers were lathi-charged or fired at by the police.
Reaffirming his dedication to the cause of non-violent protest, Hazare admitted that in the past he had used “harsh words” for a good cause.
