Anna-Mamata divorce

The honeymoon was short-lived, the end not expected.

Within a week of supporting West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee as the 'right person to be India's prime minister', Anna Hazare has backed off.

"I will not support her as Prime Minister anymore. Some such people, who have deceived me, have got associated with Mamata Banerjee. That makes it difficult for me to support her," Hazare told journalists after he was asked to explain his absence at Banerjee's Thursday rally at Delhi's Ramlila grounds.

Hazare is India's leading anti-corruption crusader and Mamata was banking much on his support to launch her party outside the country's eastern states where it hardly had any presence.

Mamata Banerjee was taken aback by Anna Hazare sudden decision not to attend the Ramlila ground rally on Thursday.

Her lieutenants told her Anna had fallen ill and could not attend, but now the anti-crusader has come out openly against supporting her, much to her embarrassment.

Mamata left Delhi in a huff after the poorly-attended rally saying this was something Anna Hazare and his supporters had organised.

But at Ramlila grounds, it seemed clearly like a Trinamul show with large cutouts of Mamata Banerjee and her pictures with Anna Hazare.

The grapevine here is agog with rumours that the BJP played a role in thwarting the Banerjee-Hazare honeymoon.

Mamata had planned to hold her next rally in Ahmedabad on Mar 20 with Anna Hazare in the state of Gujarat which is where BJP's prime minister candidate hails from.

Two leading personalities close to Anna Hazare but now openly rooting for the BJP seems to have played a role in convincing Hazare that Banerjee's government in Bengal has been tainted by scams such as the Saradha , in which a former Trinamul MP Kunal Ghosh is now in jail.

India's former army chief VK Singh and former Indian Police Service officer Kiran Bedi were very close to Anna Hazare during his anti corruption movement last year.

Now Singh has joined the BJP and Bedi is supporting Modi in her extensive tweets.

"There is a conspiracy to keep Mamata and Anna apart. I will expose it soon," said Santosh Bharatiya, who is said to be close to Anna and was widely believed to have set up the two.