Need to save Anna Hazare from his team: Salman Khurshid

NEW DELHI: Amid a fresh face-off, Law Minister Salman Khurshid today took potshots at Team Anna saying there was as much a need to save Anna Hazare from his close aides as the country needed to be saved from corruption.

Two days after Team Anna levelled fresh allegations against top UPA ministers including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Khurshid said he failed to understand the activist's demands that only ministers should be probed.

"There is a need to save Anna Hazare from these people as much as there is a need to save the country from corruption," he told reporters when asked to comment on fresh allegations of corruption made by Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal against some ministers.

"He did not name any one of them (Team Anna)," Khurshid asked the questioner.

The minister's remarks come at a time when reports appeared in a section of the media that Kiran Bedi had written to Hazare about alleged mismanagement of funds by Kejriwal's NGO Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF). Both Kejriwal and Bedi have denied the reports.

"In this country, only the ministers should be probed and not anybody else. I find it difficult to understand this. He (Kejriwal) had said that all IT officials are dishonest. Only one IT officer was honest and he left the department," Khurshid said.

Kejriwal, a former Indian Revenue Service officer, resigned as Joint Commissioner in the Income Tax department.