New Delhi: Three days after the AICC
projected that Anna Hazare was "steeped in corruption from
head to toe", a senior party leader on Wednesday said it was wrong to
call Hazare corrupt as people see him as a crusader against
corruption.
The remark posted on Twitter by Anil Shastri, a Special
Invitee to Congress Working Committee, comes today after a
party spokesperson had on last Sunday questioned the
credentials of Hazare quoting from an old judicial commission
report that had stumbled upon financial irregularities in
organsations associated with Hazare.
The very next day, the party, however made a course
correction with senior party leaders saying in private that
Congress will not engage in personal attack against Hazare
from henceforth.
The course correction took place after a meeting of
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi in the AICC
headquarters after the national flag hoisting on August 15.
The tweet by Shastri, the former editor of party
mouthpiece Congress Sandesh, says "it was wrong to call Anna
Hazare corrupt. People’s perception about him is not so. They
see him as a crusader against corruption."
Shastri is currently the chairman of `Hindi Vibagh` of
the party after being replaced as the editor of the party
mouthpiece in the backdrop of an earlier controversial
editorial by him over the government`s decision to send three
ministers to airport to receive the Yoga Guru Ramdev.
Amid conflicting statements from Congress on Anna
Hazare, this is first public admission by any senior party
leader that making any personal attack Hazare on the issue of
corruption was not politically correct.
PTI
