Anna Hazare: I will support Arvind Kejriwal if he fights poll against Kapil Sibal

Anna Hazare: I will support Arvind Kejriwal if he fights poll against Kapil Sibal

Anna Hazare today downplayed differences with Arvind Kejriwal saying he will support him if he contests elections and denied he mooted the idea of the forming a political party.

Hazare, who concluded the first round of consultations on the course of his apolitical anti-grant movement, also met Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, 12 days after they formally split on the issue of the movement taking a political plunge.

The meeting came a day before Kejriwal is set to announce his formal entry into politics with the announcement of the formation of political party.

Hazare and Kejriwal downplayed differences with both saying there were no rift between them and that they will help each other.

"I never said Arvind is bad. If he fights, I will support Arvind if he contests. So far, I have not come across any shortcomings in him. He is working for the society. But at the same time, I am not going to support all candidates put up by Arvind. How do I know whom Arvind will select.

"That MP from Chandni Chowk, Kapil Sibal. If he contests against him, I will certainly campaign for him...Sibal was against Lokpal Bill. He was against our participation in Joint Committee," Hazare told a press conference after his meetings.

Kejriwal said they came to meet him as Hazare is in Delhi. "We have a relationship. There is no fight between us.

He himself has said the goal is same though the paths are different. We told him that whenever needed, we are there to help you. He told us media is creating an impression that there is a fight," he said.

However, Hazare differed with Kejriwal's assertion that he will return to them if they work honestly and the claim that he was the first too moot the idea of forming a party.

"If he has said that, it is wrong," Hazare said when his attention was drawn to a interview by Kejriwal in which he claimed that the veteran activist asked him about the proposition.

Kejriwal had also claimed in the interview that he sought three days time from Hazare to answer his query.

Asked about another claim by Kejriwal that he will return to the fold, he answered in the negative saying he will never take a political role.

However, he said there was nothing wrong in Kejriwal taking a political route.

"I have always said that it is not wrong. Both the paths are right. If I wanted to enter politics, I would have done it earlier. There are no major differences. Why should there be differences," he asked.

But he found fault with Kejriwal-led group that they did not try to find answers to his questions on how to form political alternative. They also did not get suggestions from gram sabhas as he sought, Hazare added.

Hazare had yesterday fired a salvo at the Kejriwal-led group, saying they had not responded to his questions on how to present a political alternative to the people in the fight against corruption and dubbed the path of politics as one "full of dirt".

The path of "politics is not sacred and it is full of dirt" but the route of agitation is "sacred", Hazare had said.