Anna Hazare has gathered 6, 000 people and is going to sit on an indefinite hunger-strike at Ramlila Maidan on Friday to press the Centre to provide better production cost for farm produce . He is also demanding a competent Lokpal, implementation of the Swaminathan Commission report, and also setting up of Agriculture Price Commission on the lines of the Election Commission and Niti Aayog.
Earlier, 31 apolitical farmer associations from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh participated to set the agenda for the March 23 satyagraha. Retired Supreme Court judge and former Karnataka Lokayukta N. Santosh Hegde has announced to join the social activist's stir.
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Hazare said he would do his do satyagraha till life is left in his body and accused the central government of not allotting space. He said he would do "satyagraha from jail" if not allotted a space in New Delhi. The Gandhian has been pressing for setting up of the Lokpal at the Centre and Lokayuktas in the states. In 2011 too, he fasted for 12 days in an anti-corruption campaign demanding constitution of a Lokpal to investigate cases of corruption which would ensure effective law to deal with corruption and misgovernance.
Hazare has turned down last-minute overtures from ministers in Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis's government in Maharashtra to call off his hunger strike.
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Maharashtra Irrigation Minister Girish Mahajan had earlier met Hazare to persuade him to give up his fast, but the activist, who has put together a team of around 6,000 people across India for the purpose, indicated that he would go for the fast until Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government came up with a concrete proposal to empower the Lokpal.
The parliament had in the 2011 hunger strike aftermath passed an unprecedented resolution in support of his demands.
With PTI Inputs
