You name them, they were there. The trash cans were pile up with empty bottles and soft drinks.
Can this middle class easily afford to pay Rs 15 per bottle of water and any number of coke? Moreover reports say that unemployed youths were given Rs 500 to 1000 per day to attend the rally at Ram Lila ground and other places.
This is the ugly side of the Annas agitation against corruption. The 24×7 electronic channels beaming from National Capital had neither the cameras nor the time to project this ugly side outside Delhi Ram Lila ground. Anna was blissfully unaware of what was happening outside.
Just few weeks ago, Delhi Police was hauled up for beating up women and children while dispersing supporters of Baba Ram Dev. Yet, over the week-end half-dozen
policemen were rushed to nearby hospitals with injuries after three drunk youth wearing Anna caps rammed their vehicles at a Police picket near India Gate. Not a whimper against this violent behaviour.
One can say the ill-paid policemen are not a human being. The policemen were doing their duty signaling the driver who was shouting slogans in support of Anna to slow down near the picket. Instead, he stepped on the accelerator to flee but rammed into the barricade.
One Friday and Saturday alone, the police prosecuted 1,135 commuters. A senior police Officer confirmed that most of those prosecuted were bikers wearing common headgear-the Anna Cap instead helmet. Not only the unruly mob taking over the main arterial roads causing huge traffic jams, there were also seen dishonouring the National flag. They were seen waving distorted and torn flags. Some of them were seen squatting on the Tricolour and wiping sweat from their faces. A number of them did not think twice before sitting on the national flag.
One can understand ignorant people indulging in this. What about a Senior Police Officer like Kiran Bedi. She was seen waving a visibly torn flag from the podium provoking a senior lawyer saying “this actually epitomises the chaos in which emotively charged people undermine the very norms which provide cohesion and order to the society. This will set a very bad precedence”
Senior Parliamentarians Sharad Yadav and Lalu Prasad Yadav launched a scathing attack on Kiran Bedi. Mr Sharad Yadav had this to say “you (Bedi) have retired from Police. I have resigned from Lok Sabha thrice and suffered a sentence for a four-and-half years. We did not do it for a our family but for poor and the downtrodden people of our country.
Mr Lalu Prasad said “This is the law-making body, and they are raising fingers against it. They have made small children sit on the platform and instigating hatred against politicians.”
In the debate in Parliament on Saturday, the electronic channels were rightly given a dressing down. Why this obsession with Anna, MPs asked they asked. Several members went to the extent to say that Television Rating Point (TRP) was the bigger concern for them. Some members urged Parliament to bring functioning of electronic media in a ambit of Lok Pal Bill and including paid news in it.
DMK leader TKS Elangovan said “The Media has turned Hazare’s crusade against corruption into a fight against the Constitution. “It began as a fight against corruption and the media made fight against government, then Parliament and now it appears to a fight against Constitution”. This idiot box was so obsessed with Hazare that it had stopped telecasting other important news, especially floods in different parts of the country, particularly in eastern India.” Mr Sharad yadav said. He was also highly critical of Congress leaders clamouring to appear on the Channels.