NEW DELHI — Having trumped a government effort to defuse his anticorruption movement, the protest leader Anna Hazare announced that he would leave a city jail on Friday and begin a mass demonstration and hunger strike at a public ground in the national capital.
Mr. Hazare had initially suggested that he would emerge from Tihar Jail on Thursday and lead a public protest against corruption at Ramlila Maidan, a large outdoor public space in New Delhi. But with an enormous crowd expected to participate, Mr. Hazare’s aides announced on Thursday that another day was needed to adequately prepare the protest site.
“I just spoke to Anna ji, in view of conditions of Ramlila Maidan,” an aide, Arvind Kejriwal, said in a press release, affixing the Hindi-language honorific of “ji” to Mr. Hazare’s name. “Anna ji will reach Ramlila Maidan tomorrow.”
The delay means that for another night Mr. Hazare will remain inside Tihar Jail, where he has been fasting since his controversial arrest on Tuesday. Thousands of people have poured into the streets in different Indian cities this week to express support for Mr. Hazare and his campaign to create a new, independent anti-corruption agency with sweeping powers to investigate government officials.
His incarceration has become a major political crisis for India’s national government, especially after Mr. Hazare rejected a government offer to release him on Tuesday night. He refused because the release was contingent on his agreement to limit the scale and length of his hunger strike, terms he declined to accept. With pressure mounting, a deal was reached early Thursday morning under which Mr. Hazare agreed to limit his protest to 15 days and the police lifted any restrictions on the size of his crowd.
Mr. Hazare’s refusal to leave jail had seemed to galvanize his supporters and tapped into a public disgust with official corruption. More than 10,000 people marched through New Delhi on Wednesday in a peaceful rally that began at the India Gate monument.
Fueled by nonstop television coverage, the jailhouse protest appeared to capture the imagination of the country and back government leaders into a political corner.
Corruption is a source of growing public anger and frustration in India, and threatens to drag down the coalition government led by the National Congress Party. Mired in scandals for months, Congress Party leaders have tried to convince the public that they are cracking down on corruption, yet public skepticism remains high.
Mr. Hazare’s presence in the jail was especially embarrassing to the government because several politicians charged with corruption are being held there
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