Cracks in Team Anna, Hegde slams comment against PM

New Delhi: Eminent Team Anna member Justice Santosh Hegde on Tuesday distanced himself from the comment against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh by team member and senior Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan.

Speaking to CNN-IBN, Justice Hegde said that the comment against the Prime Minister was unwarranted.

He further said that he was unaware about the proof Team Anna had.

The comments from the former Karnataka Lokayukta came hours after Prashant Bhushan denied calling the Prime Minister a 'Shikhandi', but blamed the UPA leadership of shielding corruption in the government.

"I did not call the Prime Minister a 'Shikhandi'. We also know that he is personally not corrupt. But, when PM lets corruption flourish under his leadership, what is the point of personal honesty. Congress party uses him as a 'kavach', or shield just as Shikhandi was used as a shield in Mahabharata," he told reporters on Tuesday.

Bhushan has also written a letter to External Affairs Minister SM Krishna, accusing him of corruption. "You have strenuously opposed the investigation by the Lokayukta police ordred by High Court into your alleged role in the deservation of huge tracts of forest land for mining by private corporations, only strengthens the suspicions about your guilt in this matter. Stay order or that the matter is subjudice does not detract from the need for an independent investigation," he said.

After Anna Hazare described Manmohan Singh as an honest man, his team, which had put the

Prime Minister on a list of "corrupt ministers", said the activist was not aware of the "whole matter" regarding the PM and they will apprise him about it.

Bhushan said most of the documents are in English and Anna cannot read the language. "So these large number of documents have to be translated into Hindi to enable him to go through it. It is not possible to translate all these documents that fast so that he could read it. He knew the larger points like which minister has what charges against him and all.

"But on the Prime Minister, he did not know the whole matter. But he has full faith in us that we are doing the right thing, that the panel has vetted it," Bhushan told reporters.

His response came to a question on Anna describing Singh as an honest man after his team had on Saturday clubbed him with 14 Union Ministers levelling corruption allegations against them.

Anna had said he has not seen the papers regarding Singh and that he would seek clarification from his team when he comes to Delhi in first week of June.

Another activist Arvind Kejriwal said Anna knows about "all the issues" and if he wants to see the documents regarding Singh, they will show it to him when he comes to Delhi.

"When he came to Delhi for the March 25 protest, he was briefed about the charges against each and every minister. We wrote letters to ministers regarding the allegations after the instruction from Anna," Kejriwal said.

He said they had raised charges on coal scam and had named Sriprakash Jaiswal but later they came to know that he was not in charge of the Ministry.

Kejriwal said they all speak to Anna and even on Tuesday, he spoke to him and briefed him about the fresh allegations they were going to raise against External Affairs Minister SM Krishna.

Responding to a letter written by Krishna to Team Anna, Bhushan said that the Minister's contention that Supreme Court has ordered a stay into the investigations on dereservation of forest land in Karnataka does not in any way detract from the need for an independent investigation into the matter.

(With Additional Inputs from PTI)

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