NEW DELHI: A 73-year-old devotee of Gandhi who has promised to fast until death unless the government toughens its anti-corruption laws is piling pressure on India's graft-tainted administration.

Anna Hazare began a hunger strike in New Delhi on Tuesday which has caught the nation's attention at a time when anger over bribes and official misconduct is at boiling point.

The adoption of methods made famous by Mahatma Gandhi, who pioneered non-violent civil disobedience and fasting, and frail Hazare's physical resemblance to India's father of the nation have helped galvanise support.

Hundreds have signed up to join his fast, others have staged public rallies and candlelit vigils, and his leadership has encouraged people to vent their frustration in public about rotten bureaucrats and ministers.

“My health permits me to fast up to seven days but I will continue my strike until the government accepts our demand,” Hazare told reporters on Thursday morning.

“The Man Who Can't Be Ignored”, as he was described in The Times of India, has a modest objective in his campaign, but his work in channelling frustration over bribes and inefficiency poses a broader threat to the government.

He wants members of civil society to sit on a committee drafting the so-called Lokpal (Ombudsman) Bill which would allow members of the public to file complaints against the prime minister and his cabinet.

The former soldier with a long history of social activism scored his first victory Wednesday when Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, who Hazare had criticised as being tainted, resigned from the committee.

“We are trying to find a way that the demands of the civil society are accepted and our aim to fight corruption is achieved,” Telecom Minister and senior ruling party member Kapil Sibal told reporters on Thursday.

“We will soon find a result. We appeal to Hazare to end his hunger strike.” Hundreds of people from schoolchildren to pensioners mingled at the site of Hazare's protest in central New Delhi on Thursday at the Jantar Mantar, a park home to astronomy instruments from the 18th century.

“I read about Anna Hazare in the newspapers,” Anupam Bansal, a 31-year-old project manager from a local software firm, said. He had taken the day off to join the protest and fast.

“If a 73-year-old man can fight for us then we have to stand by him,” he added.

The bespectacled Hazare, dressed in his trademark white home-spun cotton clothes and hat, lay motionless on a mattress. Doctors are on hand 24 hours a day and an ambulance is on standby.

Rampal Singh, an 85-year-old volunteer, called Hazare “India's new Mahatma Gandhi”.

“Anyone with a least amount of concern about the future of India will join the movement,” he said. “A corruption-free state is the need of the hour.” Hazare's Facebook campaign called “India Against Corruption” has gathered nearly 78,000 members, with the outpouring of anger feeding off a string of high-profile scandals that have tarnished the government.

Protests inspired by Hazare have also been held in Bangalore, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

The Delhi Commonwealth Games last October were seen as riddled with graft, while the allegedly fraudulent sale of telecom licences in 2008 caused losses estimated at billion of dollars to the treasury.—AFP