Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday called for help from his political rivals as the government sought to end a public stand-off with fasting anti-graft activist Anna Hazare.
Nationwide support for Hazare, 74, who is now in the second week of his hunger strike, has become a major dilemma for Singh, who urged the campaigner to end his fast demanding a stronger anti-corruption law.
Singh has struggled to react to the sudden emergence of India’s biggest civil movement in decades and his government is widely seen as tainted by a succession of multi-billion-dollar scandals implicating top officials.
He met opposition party leaders at his residence in New Delhi a few miles from where Hazare is holding his public protest at an open-air venue in front of tens of thousands of cheering supporters.
Singh told the meeting that Hazare’s attempt to impose his own version of the anti-graft bill on elected lawmakers raised issues about “parliamentary democracy that concern us all”.
“(I) seek your guidance on the way forward,” Singh said.
Hazare’s anti-graft drive has brought people onto the streets of cities across the country, calling for an end to the culture of corruption that permeates all levels of Indian society.
Singh told the all-party meeting the government wanted an effective anti-graft bill, and he appealed to Hazare to call off his hunger strike so all sides could “work together in a spirit of cooperative engagement”.
“The fast and his failing health are a matter of concern to all of us,” he added, after about 100 pro-Hazare protesters gathered outside.
Hazare is staging his protest at the Ramlila grounds in central Delhi, where large numbers of supporters have gathered every day despite the heat and monsoon rains to back the man who has become a symbol of national dissent.
“It is the energy coming from you that is keeping me going,” Hazare said in a speech from his stage set above the crowd as he dismissed attempts by ministers to negotiate.
“I have just lost six kilos (13 pounds). There are concerns over my kidney. But I am deriving strength from all of you,” he added.
With Hazare only drinking water and refusing all food, there are mounting fears over his health among the team of doctors who constantly monitor his vital signs.
“We recommended last night that for safety reasons he should be admitted to hospital… but he refused to move,” the head of the medical team, Naresh Trehan, told reporters Wednesday morning.
“He initially agreed to us administering intravenous fluids, but then refused later,” Trehan said.
Hazare’s main demand is that a government anti-corruption bill currently before parliament be withdrawn and replaced by a more stringent version drafted by himself and other civil society leaders.
