Protest against corruption: Anna Hazare, government reach agreement

NEW DELHI: After two nights in Tihar Jail and hard bargaining, Anna Hazare and government reached an agreement early this morning under which Delhi Police removed all restrictions and allowed him to carry out his hunger strike for a fortnight in the spacious Ramlila Maidan here.

The breakthrough in the battle of attribution between the two sides came in the wee hours of the day after top aides of Hazare met Delhi Police Commissioner B K Gupta and reached an agreement.

The deal marks a major climbdown from government and police's earlier insistence that the fast would be allowed at JP Park, a smaller venue, only for three days with maximum of 5,000 protesters besides a number of other conditions.

The agreement came more than 40 hours after Hazare's arrest of Tuesday and release the same night. However, the Gandhian refused to come out of the jail, continued his fast and carried out hard negotiations from Tihar through his emissaries.

Activist Kiran Bedi tweeted early morning that Hazare has accepted the Delhi Police offer of 15 days and announced that he will go to Ramlila Maidan after 3 pm.

However, another close aide of the 73-year-old Gandhian said this morning that it may not be possible for Hazare to launch his protest from the Ramlila Ground today as the venue was full of muck and needs cleaning up.

"I have just spoken to Commissioner of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (K S Mehra) who has promised me that a Deputy Commissioner would supervise the cleaning up operations at the Maidan," Kejriwal said.

He said Hazare going to the protest venue "looked difficult" as of now. "We can't give a time as to whether it would start today...if it is possible, (he may do it).