For the first time, veteran anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare has made his political ambitions public. In an interview to Headlines Today executive editor Rahul Kanwal, the Gandhian said on Thursday that he would shortlist candidates for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

“I will travel across the country, tell people to come up with candidates and pick the best out of them. I will then campaign for the candidates in the 2014 elections,” Hazare said appearing on Aaj Tak’s Seedhi Baat programme.

“We will tell the people who is the best candidate for them after putting names up on the net,” the septuagenarian activist said even as he did not rule out a people’s party emerging from these candidates.

“We will ask them if they want to fight as independents or as one party. Let them decide. There is nothing wrong with a new party being formed,” Hazare said, adding that the leadership would also emerge automatically from among these candidates.

Hazare said the “betrayal” by the UPA government and other political parties on Jan Lokpal has driven him to set up candidates from among the public. He said the future was gloomy if the Congress or the BJP came to power.

“The public knows which all parties have opposed the Lokpal Bill. They will teach all parties a lesson in the 2014 elections. They will all be rejected by the people. Right now the people cannot do anything. But wait for the next elections,” Hazare cautioned.

He said the UPA government would never bring in the Lokpal because that would see the ministers named by Team Anna as corrupt landing in jail.

“If they are innocent, why is the government scared of a probe against them? Mind my words, if they don’t bring in Lokpal, this government will be defeated,” he said.

Hazare said the statements by Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid that Team Anna should go to the United Nations only showed the utter disrespect that the government had for the people of the country.

The anti-corruption crusader ruled out approaching the government for further talks on Lokpal. He said if the government was still serious about Lokpal, it was welcome to approach Team Anna.

On his meeting with Khurshid, Hazare said it was the effort of the government to malign him and try to create a rift within the team. “They made every effort to try and stop me from joining the July 25 agitation but it did not work,” he said.

Hazare rejected the view that his movement was losing steam. He said people were joining Team Anna’s agitation against the UPA government in large numbers. He, however, made it clear that his big target was setting up a non-Congress, non-BJP front for the 2014 polls.

On whether he was being pulled in different directions by his key aide Arvind Kejriwal and yoga guru Baba Ramdev, Hazare said he was not a part of any lobby.

“I will support anybody who fights against corruption. But the day people begin having selfish aims, I will pull out,” Hazare said.