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Digvijay should have his glasses changed: Anna Hazare
Anna Hazare has hit back at Congress leader Digvijay Singh saying that the charge of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh support to his anti-corruption campaign was an attempt to defame him and ruled out joining politics or becoming a Presidential candidate.
"I know very well that people throw stones only at those trees, which bear fruits. People see the world in the colour of the glasses they wear. I think that the colour of your spectacle is wrong and you should change it," he said in his eight-page letter to Digvijay.
The 74-year-old Gandhian has sought to puncture the points raised by Singh in his two letters in which the Congress General Secretary had claimed RSS was backing Hazare's Lokpal campaign and that he was surrounded by associates who are anti-Congress.
Hazare told Singh that if the government brings Jan Lokpal bill in the winter session of Parliament and strives to bring the Lokayukta Act in each state, then there was no need to agitate or to tell people not vote for Congress.
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'I neither have the capacity nor the desire to become the President'
Referring to Singh's allegation that BJP was planning to make him a candidate in the Presidential elections next year, Hazare said "I neither have the capacity nor the desire to become the President of India and wonder why Congress and BJP were talking in the air".
On allegations that RSS was behind his campaign, Hazare said "not a single RSS worker was seen in my agitation and it could be a joint attempt by Congress and RSS to defame me".
"If (RSS chief Mohan) Bhagwat has said that they were part of the agitation, then I think it is an attempt by RSS to defame me like the way your party is doing. Or it may be that both of you have ganged up to defame me," he said.
Having a dig at Singh, who was Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh for ten years, Hazare said he he would not have lost the Assembly elections had he worked for the people with total dedication.
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'Why you are trying to mislead people?'
Seeking to rubbish Singh's claims of the pro-activeness of successive Congress governments against corruption, Hazare said "it cannot be denied that your party did not pay enough attention to rural development. It cannot be denied that a strong law to check corruption was not enacted in the last 64 years."
He told Singh that he would not have attempted to link him with RSS and BJP if he had known that because of his agitation, six cabinet ministers in the BJP-led coalition in Maharashtra had to resign.
"Though you are aware of this, why you are trying to mislead people? I feel that BJP and Congress while showing differences between them were trying to fool the people. There is not much difference between the two parties," he said.
Hazare told Singh that if he feels that the call for not to vote for Congress would help BJP, then why Congress is giving it such an opportunity.
"If Jan Lokpal bill and Lokayukta Act are passed immediately, won't it benefit them"? he said adding "I have not agitated against Congress for 35 years but there are some people in Congress whose intentions are not clean on removing corruption, on Jan Lokpal and Lokayukta Acts."
"The country is being destroyed because of corruption and in order to avoid more damage, one is forced to give a call not to vote for Congress," Hazare, who has recently announced that he would appeal to people not to vote for Congress if it did not pass Jan Lokpal Bill in the winter session of Parliament, said.