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| Differently abled people wave the Tricolour and placards in support of Anna Hazare at Kargil Chowk in Patna on Monday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh |
Patna, Aug. 22: Following the footsteps of the party chief, RJD members allegedly had an argument with activists of the Patna unit of citizen’s body India Against Corruption (IAC) over Anna Hazare’s movement for Jan Lokpal Bill.
In support of the Jan Lokpal Bill and Anna Hazare, the IAC activists went to the RJD office on Beer Chand Patel Path to submit a memorandum to Lalu Prasad’s party. However, the RJD supporters refused to accept the organisation’s memorandum and asked the activists to vacate the party office premises.
Co-ordinator of IAC, Patna unit, R.K. Choudhary, said: “We came here to seek the support of the RJD and submit a memorandum in support of Anna Hazare’s campaign. The memorandum does not have anything against the party. The memorandum only requests for the RJD’s support if the Jan Lokpal Bill is introduced in Parliament.
“But the RJD supporters were not ready to listen to us. What’s wrong in submitting a memorandum? In a democratic country, we have every right to submit a memorandum to any political party. They should have at least accepted it but they refused to do so.”
As soon as the IAC members entered the RJD office, one of the RJD activists said: “How dare you to enter the office? We don’t know anything about Jan Lokpal Bill, vacate the office premises. We will not accept any memorandum.”
Activists at both ends had a heated exchange when Choudhary finally asked the RJD members to accept their memorandum verbally. But the RJD members refused to accept that too, he said.
“We are giving Anna Hazare’s movement our full support and trying to gather more support for him. He is fighting for a good cause and everyone must extend their support,” said Choudhary.
The RJD chief, Lalu Prasad, had earlier said he does not support Hazare’s movement. Lalu has also defended the UPA government over its handling of Hazare’s movement and has said that the main issue is corruption and not Anna Hazare. The RJD state unit president Ram Chandra Purbey was not available for comment.
