Anna Hazare comes clean on team's 'ego problem'

Mumbai, Oct 6: Anna Hazare who was earlier quoted as saying that some of his team members had "ego problems" said that he was misquoted by the

and he would not remove Prashant Bhushan or Arvind Kejriwal from the core committee of Team Anna.

"Among your allies are Prashant Bhushan, who criticises economic liberalisation, and Arvind Kejriwal, who has been criticised for saying overly harsh things about the Prime Minister. Do you agree with them, and is there disunity among your senior leaders?" Hazare was asked in an interview with the newspaper.

"I will try to change them. There were some ego problems. From the government side it was Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal. From our side also there were some issues. I was not getting the right feedback, nor was the Prime Minister. That complicated the issues," was how the newspaper quoted Anna as saying.

"Later, Vilasrao Deshmukh and another minister got involved and direct contact with the Prime Minister was established. I have an old relationship with Vilasrao. Then the issues were resolved. They (Bhushan and Kejriwal) are good people. I need to change them. I will change them."

Anna further said that jounalists had asked him if he thought and agreed to the views of Kejriwal and Bhushan and if there were any differences between them.

"In reply to the question, I answered that there are no differences. I said that if there are any shortcomings, I will try to find it out and if something comes to the fore, I will try to resolve it. But these journalists have taken the wrong meaning of what I said and wrote that I will remove Kejriwal and Bhushan. This is a lie," he said.

Anna further said that he was against the present economic policies like Bhushan, further challenging journalists to show the audio tape where he said that he would change Kejriwal or Bhushan.

"Parliament is the holy temple of democracy. Holy people should go there," said Anna on who should sit in these positions.

"muck for me. I will neither contest elections nor make a party nor go into politics. But in four or five years, if I get good people, I will ask them to fight elections," Anna replied on being asked if he wished to become the Prime Minister or thought of entering politics.

"What do you mean, blackmail? Am I asking for money? ... Because all the people cannot go to Parliament, we have elected politicians to make good laws and to take care of the treasury. If they are not making good laws and not keeping the treasury clean, if I protest against that, it is not blackmail," said Anna on his fasts being called a "political blackmail".

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