Author: Vineeta Pandey & Anil Sharma
Publication: Daily News & Analysis
Date: August 17, 2011
URL: http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_exclusive-chidambaram-sibal-soni-planned-anna-hazare-s-arrest_1576780-all
On the night before Anna Hazare's planned
fast the UPA's key managers - Union home minister P Chidambaram, HRD minister
Kapil Sibal, I&B minister Ambika Soni, law minister Salman Khurshid and
parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Bansal got into a huddle to finalise
their strategy to tackle the proposed fast.
Haunted by the 100-hour agitation in April
when Hazare had forced the government to back down, the UPA's political managers
insisted that arresting him would be a better idea this time.
"Last time we had to back down because
of the upcoming state elections," a minister in the UPA told DNA. "This
time, our senior leaders were confident that the damage could be limited by
arresting him."
The government wanted to use the law as a
tactic to rein in Team Anna. They felt Team Anna would tone down their rhetoric
when the government cites the law.
Chidambaram, Sibal and Soni - all adept in
handling the media - spoke to journalists for almost an hour; but it failed
to change the popular perception that the government had lost the plot by
arresting Hazare.
The government seems to be caught in a bind
as the Lokpal Bill is stuck with Parliament's standing committee and Team
Anna has taken to the streets demanding a revision of the bill.
Though the UPA ministers argued about the
"supremacy of Parliament", few bought it. The ministers tried to
justify the police crackdown by terming it a mere law and order problem. But
the government seemed to be under siege as hundreds of people took to the
streets in Delhi and 1,400 were detained in the Chhatrasal stadium.
Sibal made a last-ditch attempt by participating
in a seminar organised by a little-known "Jai Shree Education Foundation"
on the bill. But as soon as Sibal got up to speak, a group of students from
Jawaharlal Nehru University, owing allegiance to the left-of-centre All India
Student's Association, started shouting slogans in favour of Hazare.
Congress supporters from Sibal's constituency
got into fisticuffs with the protesting students. With news cameras rolling,
the event just added to the UPAs woes.
Chidambaram, whose ministry oversees the Delhi
Police, tried his best to shift the blame on the police commissioner. "It
is a painful duty we are performing," he said, trying hard to explain
that the government was not against the protest per se.
Strangely, Pranab Mukherjee and AK Antony
- two senior-most minister in the UPA - with loads of experience in dealing
with political crises kept a low profile throughout the day. They did participate
in the morning meeting of the cabinet committee on parliamentary affairs though.
The Congress may be technically correct in
its position - using the police, issuing prohibitory orders, taking Hazare
in preventive custody - but it lost the battle on the streets. The UPA's key
managers failed to recognise this as a political crisis; instead, they tried
to deal with the matter as civil unrest.