Date:11/07/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/07/11/stories/2003071102861300.htm

National

NCP Minister plans privilege move against Anna Hazare

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI JULY 10. A senior Nationalist Congress Party Minister in the coalition Government of Maharashtra, Suresh Jain, said today that "the Government and its officials'' were awed by "the status'' of Anna Hazare and "allowed him to flout rules" to the extent that he had not been asked to return the unspent money granted to a trust run by the social worker though the task of setting up `model villages' was abandoned. About Rs. 30 lakh was unspent by the Hazare-run trust, he said.

Mr. Jain, who is campaigning to "expose Mr. Hazare,'' plans to raise a motion of privilege against him — as would apparently `several MLAs' who spoke to Mr. Jain — in the coming monsoon session of the Assembly. Now, Mr. Jain demanded a three-member panel of retired High Court judges to probe the charges and counter-charges between him and Mr. Hazare.

"I have produced proof of all my charges against Mr. Hazare; he has only threatened to make them public on August 9 here,'' Mr. Jain said at his third press conference. "If he sits on an indefinite hunger strike from August I too will sit next to him,'' Mr. Jain said.

Mr. Jain plans to hold two press conferences a week to detail what he alleges "irregularities" by Mr. Hazare. Official documents too are being released; today's bunch was of some 200 pages "and more are to come,'' according to Mr. Jain.

Though Mr. Jain is one of the four Ministers named for alleged corruption and irregularities, he has taken it upon himself to "end this tendency'' of holding politicians to ransom by instigating a public outcry without substantiating the allegations. If Mr. Hazare says "irregularities committed by us is corruption,'' then "irregularities by him too amount to corruption,'' Mr. Jain said.

Yesterday, Mr. Hazare held a press conference and conceded that there were some technical irregularities in not submitting accounts of his trusts to the Charity Commissioner as required under law, but said that it was the fault of his chartered accountant, not the trust's.

But Mr. Jain repeated his earlier charges that the supporters of Mr. Hazare in towns and villages were actually using the anti-corruption platform and "extorting" money by using strong-arm tactics. Several "honourable persons" who were on his trust were no longer associated with it, Mr. Jain said.