Anna tries to convince Sonia, sends out warning

Social activist Anna Hazare appeared satisfied after a meeting with Congress president Sonia Gandhi at her 10, Janpath residence in New Delhi.

Addressing media persons on Saturday evening, Anna said that the civil society had put its view before the UPA chairperson, and added that she had promised to look into the issue.

The Gandhian, however, warned that if the right draft did not go to the Parliament, he would go on fast again. The meeting between Anna and Sonia was earlier scheduled for June 30, but was cancelled.

During the meeting, Anna and his colleagues impressed upon the Congress president the need to bring the prime minister under Lokpal to fight corruption effectively. On her part, Sonia made it clear that Anna should not doubt her commitment to fight corruption.

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Additional Inputs: Agencies

She also stated that she strongly believed in the institution of Lokpal and that the Bill was very much on agenda of the National Advisory Council.

The meeting comes a day after Anna and his civil society activists' team met senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders ahead of the all-party meeting scheduled on July 3 to discuss the draft anti-graft Lokpal Bill.

The civil society members met BJP veteran Lal Krishna Advani, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley to garner support for their version of the Jan Lokpal Bill.

In an endeavour to build a consensus on the Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by the civil society activists, Anna had met Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar earlier on Thursday. He also met Communist Party of India General Secretary AB Bardhan in this regard.

Anna has been meeting political leaders across the board to build a consensus on the Bill that members of the civil society have drafted -- a key element of which is to include the Prime Minister under the purview of the Lokpal.

Civil society representatives and social activists Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi earlier met Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary Prakash Karat in this regard.

They termed the meeting as positive and said that Karat agreed on several points with civil society members over the Lokpal Bill.

The final meeting between the government and civil society representatives on the Lokpal Bill ended in New Delhi on June 21 with differences continuing to persist on six issues, including bringing the post of the Prime Minister under the purview of Lokpal.

Two sets of drafts -- one by the government and the other by the civil society representatives -- would now be circulated amongst political parties and then would be forwarded to the cabinet for the final drafting of the bill.