Anna wave likely to affect Congress, says union minister.

Daily Bhaskar:Tuesday, September 26, 2011.

Pune: Congress leader and union Minister of State for Coal Pratik Patil, on Monday, said the party would suffer in the ensuing elections to local self-government bodies due to the anti-corruption movement launched by Gandhian, Anna Hazare.

He was speaking at the party convention for the region comprising Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur and Solapur districts organised in the city.

Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan; Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) president Manikrao Thakare; Shivajirao Deshmukh, speaker of the state legislative council; and state Cooperatives Minister Harshwardhan Patil were present.

The state would go to polls for 10 municipal corporations, 27 zilla parishads and numerous panchayat samitis under them, as well as 168 municipal councils by the end of this year and early in 2012. The convention was organised in the city to assess opinions of party office-bearers in Western Maharashtra.

Wondering whether the party activists would be able to answer them convincingly, Patil said that the citizens would raise questions regarding scams exposed in the central government following Hazare's anti-graft campaign.

Supporting Hazare's movement, Patil said that he would launch a campaign from October 2 to free Sangli, his home district, from the menace of corruption. "Politicians are blamed for corruption but they are few in numbers. The origin of corruption is among the public and it should be nipped in the bud," he said.

Shivajirao Deshmukh, a member of the Congress working committee (CWC) the highest decision-making body in the party echoed Patil's views. He said that people saw Ramayan on Ramlila Maidan on the issue of corruption.

Chavan said that many scams had been uncovered due to the Right To Information (RTI) Act, 2005 (RTI). Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and the party should be given credit for introducing RTI to ensure transparency in governance.

Speaking at a press conference later, Thakare said that the party activists need not be afraid of the impact of Hazare's agitation or influence of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). He said people have elected the Congress in the past also, when there were attempts to defame the party.