Anna, 4 others on Lokpal panel to declare assets tomorrow

Five civil society members of the joint drafting committee on Lokpal Bill including Anna Hazare will tomorrow declare their assets and liablities, a day before the panel will sit for the first time.

A spokesperson for the civil society said Anna, Shanti Bhushan, Santosh Hegde, Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal will release personal statement of their assets and liabilities tomorrow.

"They will be meeting with fellow campaigners to discuss issues pertaining to the Joint Draft Committee of Jan Lokpal Bill," the spokesperson for the 'India Against Corruption', which spearheaded the campaign, said.

The group also said it has received a total donation of Rs 82,87,668. "We have issued receipts to all the donors and have maintained a record of their details. We issued receipts on account of Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF) which is acting as secretariat for the campaign," the spokesperson said.

So far, the spokesperson said, they have spent Rs 32,69,900.

A statement from the group also said that social activist Mallika Sarabhai has reaffirmed her faith in the campaign.

In a letter to Hazare, the group quoted her as saying, "I am totally with Anna Hazare in his commitment to weed out corruption. Anna told me that his understanding about development in Gujarat comes mainly from press reports, which I feel are not entirely accurate.

"However I must add that I would be ecstatic if every village in Gujarat could transform into a Ralegan Sidhi. I admire Anna's dedicated crusade over the last three decades and I stand by him completely," Sarabhai was quoted as saying.

Sarabhai had earlier expressed reservation at Hazare's praise for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and said she would dissociate with the campaign if he did not clarify his stand on the BJP leader.