Team Anna begins referendum on Jan Lokpal Bill

Team Anna on Sunday kick-started a nationwide referendum on its Jan Lokpal Bill in 12 Lok Sabha constituencies, including those represented by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Rahul Gandhi, in a bid to mobilise support for its anti-corruption draft.

The beginning of the referendum coincided with the birth anniversary of Gandhiji.

Besides in Ms. Gandhi's Rae Bareli and Rahul's Amethi, activists are conducting the referendum in Mainpuri (Mulayam Singh of the Samajwadi Party), Varanasi (Murli Manohar Joshi of the BJP), Ghaziabad (Rajnath Singh of the BJP), Kaushambi (Shailendra Kumar of the Samajwadi Party), Hamirpur (V.B. Singh of the Bahujan Samaj Party), Lucknow (Lalji Tandon of the BJP) and Ambedkar Nagar (Rakesh Pandey of the BSP) in Uttar Pradesh.

In Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Lalu Prasad's Saran and BJP MP Kirti Azad's Darbhanga constituencies face the referendum, while in Orissa it is being done in Puri, represented by Pinaki Mishra of the Biju Janata Dal.

Mr. Prasad, Mr. Azad, Mr. Mishra, Mr. Shailendra Kumar and Mr. Singh are members of the Standing Committee looking into the government's Lokpal Bill.

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