Anna 'jantantra' rally in Patna today
Patna, Jan 30 : Anti corruption crusader and social activist Anna Hazare will be holding his first rally on Wednesday at Patna's Gandhi Maidan after he and Arvind Kejriwal parted ways and the latter joined politics.
Hazare is holding the rally to launch a country-wide 'Vyawastha Parivartan' (change in system) programme and address a "Jantantra rally", which is supposed to be a farmers' movement here, said reports, adding that the movement will later be extended to Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Karnataka over the next year.
Former army chief General VK Singh and former Team Anna member Kiran Bedi are also expected to participate in the rally.
Hazare, who chose Patna for the campaign, reportedly said Bihar was a "pious land" since Gandhiji had launched Satyagrah against the British rule from Champaran.
He also said that the place holds a special place as Jayaprakash Narayan, better known as JP had his 'sampoorna kranti' (total revolution) from here, and also because Bihar is the land of Gautam Buddha.
"The first phase of my movement was against corruption. Apart from anti-graft, the second phase of my movement will now also focus on a complete systematic change. We will take the cause of total revolution to its logical end," Hazare told reporters.
Speaking on Congress supremo Sonia Gandhi's assurance to him on the Lokpal Bill, Hazare said these kind of assurances have been coming for the past two years.
"Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had earlier too written such letters to me promising to pass the Lokpal bill. (Their) intention is not clear ... They have been cheating people time and again ... If they had been honest, one or at best two parliamentary sessions would have been sufficient to do it (pass the Lokpal bill)," Hazare was quoted as saying.