Hazare team initiates referendum on Lok Pal Bill

Seeking to galvanise public opinion in favour of its version of Lok Pal Bill, the Anna Hazare team today initiated a "referendum" on the law in Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency represented by HRD Minister Kapil Sibal.

The volunteers of 'India Against Corruption' (IAC) visited ten localities in Chandni Chowk and distributed a two-page questionnaire having eight questions to voters in the constituency.

The Hazare team expects to cover the entire constituency by Sunday.

Activist Arvind Kejriwal said they will be approaching around seven lakh house-holds in Chandni Chowk constituency from where Sibal had won. "He is the government's face of Lok Pal. So we decided to hold the referendum in his constituency.

"Our volunteers will visit houses, leave the questionnaire and collect it two days later. There will be eight questions, including whether the Prime Minister should be brought under Lok Pal," he said.

If the people, he said, votes for the civil society version, then they will ask Sibal whether he will go by the party High Command or people's wishes.

He said they expect to publish the results by July 27.

Kejriwal said the survey sheets will be "optical mark recognition (OMR)" sheets which will be tabulated using computers.