New Delhi, September 02 : Anna Hazare has returned to his village in Maharashtra but the Left seems to be taking his struggle forward.
Four Left parties will tomorrow march to Parliament Street to press for measures to tackle graft. The issues they plan to raise are similar to what Hazare had voiced when he broke his fast at Ramlila Maidan.
The five issues on which the comrades will march are: an effective Lokpal, separate mechanism to tackle corruption in the judiciary, electoral reforms, steps to unearth black money and changing policy to prevent high-level corruption.
After breaking his fast, Hazare too had talked about electoral reforms.
The comrades will hit the streets for a 3km march from Mandi House to Parliament Street, but it was not clear whether senior leaders will join the cadres. The fax from the CPM headquarters said Prakash Karat, A.B. Bardhan, Sitaram Yechury, D. Raja and Abani Roy would address the public meeting on Parliament Street.
The Left, particularly the CPM, has been trying to ride the Anna tide and reap political mileage. Opinions within the party are, however, divided over the Left being seen as backing the civil society movement.
Marxist intellectuals associated with the party as well as some leaders feel it is not prudent politics to align with a civil society movement. They say the Left traditionally holds civil society and action groups as part of imperialist strategy and, therefore, it would be a mistake to be identified with such apolitical groups.
Karat, however, is not willing to heed such advice. Party insiders say he wants to corner the Congress over corruption. Karat has already put it on record that Hazare’s movement had received “overwhelming support”, which reflected the popular mood against corruption.