Anna Hazare to go to Ramlila Maidan tomorrow

New Delhi, Aug 18: Anna Hazare will launch his protest at Ramlila Maidan on Friday, Aug 19 as the venue is yet to get readied for the fast and will stay for one more night in Tihar Jail, activist Arvind Kejriwal said.

"I spoke to Annaji. In view of the conditions at Ramlila Maidan, Annaji will reach Ramlila Maidan on Friday," Kejriwal said.

Another Hazare associate Kiran Bedi said the Gandhian will not move out of Tihar Jail till he embarks on his journey to Ramlila Maidan to launch the protest. Hazare reached an agreement with government early this morning on the protest venue and the conditions.

As soon as Hazare announced that he would move to Ramlila, MCD which owns the ground deployed around 100 workers to clean the facility but the work was so massive that they could not finish it by the afternoon as desired by the Gandhian's team.

Earlier, Bedi had said that Hazare will go to the Maidan after 3 pm today.

Hazare was lodged in Tihar Jail on Tuesday evening after he was detained for going ahead with his plans to defy prohibitory orders in J P Park here. However, he was released later but he refused to come out of the prison demanding that there should not be any restrictions on his protest.

After hard bargaining for two days, Hazare and government reached an agreement early this morning under which Delhi Police removed all restrictions and allowed him to carry out his hunger strike for 15 days in the spacious Ramlila Maidan.

The breakthrough came in the wee hours of the day after top aides of Hazare met Delhi Police Commissioner B K Gupta.

PTI