Lokpal Bill row: Hazare to meet Sonia today

Image: Social actvist Anna Hazare

Social activist Anna Hazare and other representatives of the civil society will meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi on Saturday to seek her support on the Jan Lokpal Bill.

The civil society activists will meet the United Progressive Alliance chairperson at her 10, Janpath residence at around 16:30 hours. It was earlier scheduled for June 30, but was cancelled.

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Lokpal Bill row: Hazare to meet Sonia today

Image: Congress President Sonia Gandhi

The meeting comes a day after Hazare and his civil society activists' team met senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders on Friday ahead of the all-party meeting scheduled on July 3 to discuss the draft anti-graft Lokpal Bill.

The civil society members met BJP veteran LK Advani, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley to garner support for their version of the Jan Lokpal Bill.

In an endeavor to build a consensus on the Jan Lokpal Bill drafted by the civil society activists, Hazare met Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar earlier on Thursday.

He also met Communist Party of India (CPI) General Secretary AB Bardhan in this regard.

Lokpal Bill row: Hazare to meet Sonia today

Image: Hazare met senior BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj, LK Advani on Friday

Hazare also wanted to meet Congress President Sonia Gandhi to try and bring her around to his side of the Lokpal debate, but the meeting did not take place on Thursday.

Hazare is meeting political leaders across the board to build a consensus on the Bill that members of the civil society have drafted -- a key element of which is to include the Prime Minister under the purview of the Lokpal.

Civil society representatives and social activists Arvind Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi earlier met Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Prakash Karat in this regard.

Lokpal Bill row: Hazare to meet Sonia today

Image: Hazare with civil society member Arvind Kejriwal outside the Parliament in New Delhi
Photographs: Reuters

They termed the meeting as positive and said that Karat agreed on several points with civil society members over the Lokpal Bill.

The final meeting between the government and civil society representatives on the Lokpal Bill ended in New Delhi on June 21 with differences continuing to persist on six issues including bringing the post of the prime minister under the purview of Lokpal.

Two sets of drafts- one by the government and the other by the civil society representatives would now be circulated amongst political parties and then would be forwarded to the cabinet for the final drafting of the Bill.

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