The Congress and the BJP are scurrying to position themselves ahead of Sunday's
all-party meeting on the anti-graft Lokpal bill.
On Friday, the parties unsheathed their swords, accusing each other of not being sincere about the fight against corruption.
Meanwhile, a significant move on the eve of the all-party meeting will be the much-anticipated meeting between Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Hazare on Saturday.
On Friday, Hazare and his colleagues met the BJP brass, where his colleague, Arvind Kejriwal, made a detailed presentation on their version of the Jan Lokpal bill.
'We requested the BJP that when the bill comes up in Parliament, its top leaders should argue strongly for it and they agreed, Hazare said.
But the BJP leadership conveyed to Hazare’s team that the party was not in favour of covering MPs under the bill. While MPs should be accountable, they should also be allowed to speak freely in Parliament without the fear of libel suits, it said.
Also, as part of the inspired campaign, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said in Kolkata: 'When Anna Hazare was on fast, the CPM politburo and the BJP supported him. They thought it was an attack on the Congress and they could take political mileage out of it.'
