Maneka Gandhi greets Hazare on Tuesday. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, April 5: The Tricolour received company from flags and stickers declaring allegiance to the BJP, the Rashtriya Lok Dal and yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s Bharat Swabhiman Nyas on SUVs.

The site of the confluence was Jantar Mantar, where social activist Kisan Baburao “Anna” Hazare began a fast-unto-death for a Jan Lokpal Bill.

Hazare said the bill — drafted by Karnataka Lokayukta N. Santosh Hegde, lawyer Prashant Bhushan and social worker Arvind Kejriwal — was more transparent and stringent than the government’s Lokpal Bill.

Addressing an audience of around 500 — mostly made of the salaried and small traders — the 73-year-old Padma Shri winner said he was fasting because the government turned down his demand that the drafting committee have an equal number of official and civil society representatives.

“The government proposed a four-member ministerial committee. I said if ministers could stop corruption, ‘why is it increasing for 61 years since we became a republic’?”

Hazare added that before he attended Ramdev’s anti-corruption rally in Delhi on February 27, he had written to Sonia Gandhi about the bill. “She didn’t even reply. You can’t reply to a man who has given his whole life for the country,” said the 1965 war veteran.

The audience raised slogans of “Shame! Shame!”

“The NAC (the Sonia-headed panel) kept calling me, but I didn’t go. They want to just use me as a photo opportunity to take the wind out of the sails of our movement. I will only go when the de facto PM Sonia Gandhi takes a decision,” he added.

Hazare said he expected the government to relent in three to four days.

He shared the dais with Kiran Bedi, Sandeep Pandey and Kejriwal, along with Swami Agnivesh and Prashant Bhushan.

The Janata Dal (United)’s Sharad Yadav and the BJP’s Prakash Javadekar came calling and expressed solidarity with his cause but asked him to call off the fast.

The backdrop of the stage has a large image of Bharat Mata. Compere Kumar Vishwas said that in history books Alexander, Akbar and Babur were on one side and poets like Kabir on the other. Hazare was like the latter. People like the former will be forced to leave the country.

Flags and banners of Ramdev’s Patanjali Yogpeeth and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s Art of Living Foundation also fluttered around the tent.

Bhushan said they weren’t insisting that the government accept their draft in its entirety. “We are also agreeable to the NAC choosing common people and government representatives to frame the bill.”

While Hazare and Bhushan insisted their objective wasn’t to topple the government, Agnivesh appealed to the crowd to “throw out these corrupt rulers”.