NEW DELHI—An aide to jailed Indian activist Anna Hazare said the anticorruption advocate had reached a deal with police early Thursday under which he would leave detention and stage his planned hunger-strike protest in the capital for up to 15 days.
The tentative word came after several thousand people gathered in central Delhi and other Indian cities on Wednesday evening in support of Mr. Hazare, 73 years old, who was jailed on Tuesday after refusing to agree to conditions on his proposed hunger strike to call for a more powerful anticorruption ombudsman.
Kiran Bedi, an aide to Mr. Hazare and former senior Delhi police officer, said via Twitter that Mr. Hazare had accepted the police offer to begin his fast at Ramlila Grounds in Delhi for 15 days after police removed "unacceptable conditions" that she didn't specify in her post.
Rajan Bhagat, spokesman for the Delhi police, said the police had earlier put a total of 20 conditions to allow Mr. Hazare to fast at a public park in Delhi where he was supposed to start his hunger strike on Tuesday. Mr. Hazare and his team agreed on 14 conditions and there were disagreements on other police demands like the number of protesters at the site to not exceed 5,000, fast to not continue beyond 3 days and number of cars at the parking area of the park not exceed 50, Mr. Bhagat said Thursday morning.
As a part of the compromise reached between Mr. Hazare and the police early Thursday, Mr. Hazare will now sit on fast at the city's Ramlila Grounds for up to 15 days with police relaxing the restriction of the number of protesters and vehicles at the new protest site to as much as the place can hold, according to Mr. Bhagat. Mr. Hazare and team have also agreed to allow a team of one private doctor and one government doctor to regularly inspect Mr. Hazare's health when he is on fast. They have also agreed to not use loudspeakers at the proposed new protest site between 10 in the night to 6 in the morning, Mr. Bhagat added.
On Wednesday, people at the India Gate monument near Parliament surrounded a battery of television news trucks, chanting "Anna, we're with you!" and "Long Live Anna!" in Hindi as they held candles and waved Indian flags and banners. Television footage showed smaller crowds in other cities including Bangalore and Chennai.
Mr. Hazare remained in New Delhi's Tihar Jail, which also houses several politicians arrested in recent months in connection with corruption scandals that have rocked the government and helped fuel support for the activist's campaign.
Mr. Hazare has been a sharp thorn in the government's side. Officials have acknowledged the government was caught off guard by his original fast in April, which tapped into growing discontent, especially among India's middle class.
Following the April hunger strike, the Congress party-led government formed a joint committee of five civil-society representatives and five senior ministers to draft legislation to set up an anticorruption ombudsman, known as the Lokpal Bill. But there were disagreements over the scope of the bill, as it didn't bring all government officials under its jurisdiction. Mr. Hazare and his supporters wanted all government officials, including the prime minister, to be covered by the Lokpal Bill. They later burned copies of the draft legislation in protest.
With Mr. Hazare and colleagues included on the drafting panel for the ombudsman bill, the government had a chance to position itself as working with civil society, but the committee failed to reach a consensus.
The government has come under fire for bungling and graft related to October's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi and a November report by a government auditing agency that found that a 2008 allotment of mobile-telecommunications spectrum was rigged and may have cost the government as much as $40 billion in lost revenue.
he scandals have undermined the government's legislative agenda despite repeated promises by officials that they intend to jump start a stalled effort to further open Indian markets to foreigners, improve ailing areas of the economy such as infrastructure and introduce programs aimed at the lower rungs of society.
The government's inability to push forward with its agenda—which includes a new food subsidy for the poor and plans to increase foreign participation in the insurance industry—is likely to further weaken its standing and increase voter frustration.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had earlier Wednesday backed the police decision to arrest Mr. Hazare and detain more than 2,600 protesters, but Mr. Singh has faced heavy criticism, including from Arun Jaitley of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, who defended Mr. Hazare's right to protest.
"Have you forgotten all sense of statecraft? Have you forgotten how political agitations are to be dealt with?" Mr. Jaitley asked in the upper house of Parliament on Wednesday after the prime minister had said Mr. Hazare would have been allowed to protest if he had agreed to police conditions, which included restricting his fast to three days and limiting the number of protesters at the site—a public park in New Delhi—to 5,000.
Mr, Jaitley's party doesn't appear in a position to bring about any dramatic changes, such as a successful no-confidence vote in Parliament, and the government won't have to face voters until 2014 at the latest.
Mr. Singh told Parliament that Mr. Hazare was wrong to use protest to force the adoption of additional provisions to the Lokpal Bill.
"Our government does not seek any confrontation with any section of the society," Mr. Singh said. "But when some sections of society deliberately challenge the authority of the government…it is the bounden duty of the government to maintain peace and tranquility."
Still, the government expressed confidence that the new parliamentary session would be more productive. Instead, it is facing a resumption of the previous paralysis, with the corruption issue dominating the session.
The lack of policy initiatives also is having a negative impact on economic growth, with high inflation and interest rates contributing to a series of downward revisions on growth rates this year by both the government and economists. Earlier, growth predictions for gross domestic product centered on a rise of about 8.5% in the year ending March 31, 2012. Now, many economists see it around 7.5%—still high in the context of a global economy in the doldrums but less than India needs to bring about a dramatic transformation for the majority of its citizens.
Many of the protesters at India Gate were young. Archana Dang, 22, said she was backing Mr. Hazare because the government's anticorruption bill is too weak, since it shields sitting prime ministers and the judiciary from investigation. "In a democracy, a basic principle is that all people are equal before the law—why should the prime minister be different?" she said.
"The P.M. isn't corrupt, but now he's supporting corrupt people," said Ravinder Singh, 29, who works in sales at a financial-services firm and was among the thousands gathered at dusk at India Gate, where there was a carnival-like atmosphere with vendors hawking street snacks and tea while police mingled with protesters.
Mehul Gaur, a 24-year-old architect, said Prime Minister Singh acted "irresponsibly" by condoning the arrest of Mr. Hazare prior to the protest. "If we aren't able to assemble freely to protest, God knows what will happen next," he said.
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