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Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Tuesday accused Anna Hazare of not raising his voice against corruption post-2014 under BJP-headed governments, days after the activist said AAP lost the Delhi polls due to Arvind Kejriwal's focus on money. Hazare hit back, saying some people perceived things as per their mental set-up. "Arvind Kejriwal and Manoj Sisodia made Anna (Hazare) a mahatma. Without them, Anna couldn't have seen Delhi also. After 2014, there was an explosion of irregularities under the BJP-ruled Centre and Maharashtra, but Anna didn't utter a single word," Raut told reporters. He said Hazare should have visited Ram Leela and Jantar Mantar in Delhi to protest against corruption. Responding to the criticism, Hazare said, "A person wearing a particular colour of spectacle sees the world accordingly". After AAP suffered a drubbing in the recent Delhi assembly polls, Hazare said Kejriwal "only focussed on liquor" and forgot to serve the people.
Social activist Anna Hazare, who had a decade ago become the face of the anti-corruption movement, Friday said he had warned Arvind Kejriwal, arrested in the excise policy case, to stay away from making such a policy. Hazare, who spearheaded the Lokpal movement in the early 2010s along with Kejriwal, said the Delhi chief minister was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate because of his own deeds. I had told him that our job is not to make excise policy. Even a small child knows that liquor is bad. I had asked him to stay away from this (excise policy) issue. But he went ahead and made the policy, Hazare said, speaking to PTI at his village Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra. He thought that he will earn more money and that is why he made this policy. I felt sad and wrote to him twice. I felt sad that a person like Kejriwal, who once worked with me and raised our voice against alcohol, is now making the excise policy. He got arrested due to his deeds. Had he not done anything, there ..
On a day Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal appeared before the CBI in the excise policy case, Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday alleged that the Aam Aadmi Party used activist Anna Hazare to capture power in the name of corruption. Rijiju also shared portions of an undated interview of Hazare in which the activist purportedly sounded critical of the Delhi excise policy. "Now they have captured power I am sure they will not even listen to Annaji. Corruption was an excuse to fool Annaji and the people. "Anna ji was used only to capture Power and to loot the resources in the name of corruption," the Union minister wrote in English and Hindi on Twitter. Kejriwal appeared before the CBI on Sunday for questioning in the excise policy case.
Social activist Anna Hazare has written a letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, slamming his government's new excise policy and said it seems the CM has "sunk in the addiction of power." Hazare also said it seems the new policy will encourage liquor sale and consumption and spur corruption. Last month, Delhi Lt Governor V K Saxena recommended a CBI probe into the alleged irregularities in the implementation of Delhi's Excise Policy 2021-22. Hazare, while citing the complete liquor ban in his village Ralegan Siddhi in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district, reminded former associate Kejriwal about the latter's book 'Swaraj' which favoured liquor ban. The activist, who had penned the book's foreword, said he has written a letter to Kejriwal for the first time since he became CM and that it pains him to read reports about the Delhi government's new excise policy. "You wrote several idealistic things in the book. Everyone had hopes from you but it seems that after becoming the CM
Activist Anna Hazare on Thursday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and reiterated his decision to launch "the last hunger strike" of his life on farmers' issues in Delhi by January end. The letter comes even as famrer unions are agitating on Delhi borders against the Centre's new farm laws. He will stage the fast by month-end, 83-year-old Hazare said, without specifying the date. On December 14, Hazare had written to Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, warning of a hunger strike if his demands including the implementation of the M S Swaminathan Committee's recommendations on agriculture were not fulfilled. Another demand made by him was grant of autonomy to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices. "On the issue of farmers, I have had correspondence (with the Centre) five times, however, no response came. "As a result, I have decided to go on the last hunger strike of my life," said Hazare in his missive to the prime minister. He w