New Delhi, Dec. 11: Anna Hazare today appeared to betray an ambition to become the next Jaya Prakash Narayan if not a Mahatma Gandhi II, asking the Opposition to join his agitation if the UPA defeated the efforts to enact a strong Lokpal.

He asked the Opposition to hit the streets and fill the jails, sounding a little like JP who had brought the Right and the Left together in his 1970s campaign against the day’s Congress government.

“If the government hesitates to pass a strong Lokpal Bill or rejects your suggestions, and if you (the Opposition) fall short of numbers... you can join us with all your parties and workers and come to the streets for a larger campaign,” Hazare said at Jantar Mantar before an estimated crowd of 7,000 on one of the coldest days of the winter.

“Let us see how the government does not do it. We will ensure that no jail in the country remains empty, such will be our campaign.”

Still, it seemed a case of one step forward and two steps back, for neither Hazare nor aide Arvind Kejriwal could resist calling the political class names even while sharing the dais with them.

As he criticised the parliamentary standing committee’s “weak” Lokpal draft, Hazare hit out at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, home minister P. Chidambaram and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi.

In a dig at Rahul, who last night visited a village near Lucknow, Hazare said “spending one day in a hut is not enough” to become Prime Minister and that Rahul should “spend months doing it”.

But he also condemned the entire political class as traitors, appearing to annoy the politicians present.

When her turn to speak came, the CPM’s Brinda Karat said: “Terming all politicians as corrupt from this platform is not proper; the country needs good politicians also.”

As for the Opposition unity Hazare sought, it seemed to cut both ways. Representatives from nearly all major Opposition parties were present. However, the BJP’s Arun Jaitley, the Left’s A.B. Bardhan, D. Raja and Brinda Karat, Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav and the rest were united in reminding Team Anna that lawmaking was Parliament’s prerogative.

The leaders also agreed nearly in unison to leave the dais when Kejriwal’s weakness for playing to the gallery got him to start grilling the politicians.

The Samajwadi Party’s Ramgopal Yadav drew loud jeers from the audience when he said Team Anna shouldn’t expect its version to be accepted verbatim. Bardhan’s suggestion that it may take a year or two to get a strong Lokpal enacted too provoked hooting.

The police reckoned the gathering did not cross 10,000 but an officer said: “Since it wasn’t a captive audience but a floating one, it’s possible that 25,000 attended.”