Prime Minister Narendra Modi has the “ego of his prime ministership”, anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare said while speaking at a rally in Maharashtra on Saturday, PTI reported.

“I have written more than 30 letters to Modi in the last three years but he never replied to them,” Hazare said. “Modi has an ego of his prime ministership, hence he did not respond to my letters.”

Hazare was speaking at the rally in the Sangli district to build support for protests he is planning to hold in New Delhi beginning March 23.

In November, Hazare announced his plans to launch this agitation to demand for the implementation of the Lokpal Act and to protest against the agrarian crisis in the country. He said then too that he was launching the agitation because he had written to Modi about these issues but had not got a response.

March 23 marks the anniversary of the hanging of freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev during the British rule in 1931. “It will be a never-seen-before kind of massive agitation that will be a warning to the government,” Hazare said on Saturday.

The Lokpal Bill

Hazare first went on a hunger strike to demand a Lokpal – an anti-corruption ombudsman – in 2011, during the rule of the United Progressive Alliance government. The 12-day strike was followed by another in 2012, after which the government passed the Lokpal Bill.

In April 2017, the Supreme Court had criticised the government for the delay in the implementation of the Lokpal legislation. It had said the legislation passed to appoint the Lokpal was a workable one, and there was no need for the Centre to keep its implementation pending.