NEW DELHI: Life has come a full circle for the newly-appointed Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal and his ‘guru’ Anna Hazare. On Tuesday, the Chief Minister, with his full force of 66 MLAs, reached Jantar Mantar to join Hazare in his sit-in demonstration against the Land Acquisition Bill tabled by the Centre in the current Parliament session.
After the stupendous success of the 2012 India against corruption movement of which 77-year-old Hazare was the face and Kejriwal his trusted lieutenant, the AAP leader joined full time politics, quite to the disagreement of the Gandhian guru. But all the bad blood between them was washed off with Kejriwal calling Anna his father figure.
Almost three years later, the Dharna Parivar is united to take up fight against the ‘worse than British regime of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.’
After the meeting with Hazare on Monday at Maharashtra Sadan, this was the second time Kejriwal and Hazare met within the span of two days. Kejriwal who invited Anna to the Delhi Secretariat said “I think of Anna as my guru, my father. I request him to spare 10 minutes to visit the Delhi Secretariat tomorrow (Wednesday). His presence will purify the space.”
Kejriwal stood beside the stage for a few moments before being invited onstage amid loud round of cheers, in contrast to Anna’s earlier statement that sharing the dais with politicians would make the two-day long Chetavni Dharna political.
Kejriwal, in his address of around 30 minutes, termed the Centre as a ‘property dealer’ and said, “If the amendment bill is passed, then this government will become a dalal, it will become property dealer for big companies”.
“If we want to develop this nation, then we have to take the public along. We cannot do by running bulldozer over them. Then the public will run the bulldozer over you,” Kejriwal who recently humbled a mighty BJP in the Delhi Assembly elections added.
Hazare making appeal to the crowd to continue this movement and create awareness about the ‘ills of the land bill’ among the farmers said, “We will return to Ram Lila Maidan after four months for Jail Bharo Andolan as this is second fight for independence. Till then we will travel across the country so that the farmers get to know the injustice meted out to you.”
The two-day demonstration was attended by several farmer unions across the country and they wore white caps bearing the slogan ‘Main Anna Samartak Hoon’. The organisers have launched their own site www.annasamrthak.org