Baba cries ‘oust Cong’ as NDA jumps on to bandwagon

Baba cries ‘oust Cong’ as NDA jumps on to bandwagon

The police on Monday took Baba Ramdev into custody when he and thousands of his supporters tried to march towards Parliament, demanding the government brings back black money stashed abroad. Ramdev, who had been on a protest fast for the past five days, was released at the Ambedkar stadium near Ferozeshah Kotla in central Delhi at night. Refusing to call off his fast and leave the stadium, he said the government should provide food and water to everyone. He accused the government of spending money on “terrorists lodged in jail”. “Whose responsibility is it to feed the people here?” he asked. “This government does not love its people and a government that doesn’t love its people has no right to rule.” Though Ramdev kept stressing since the beginning of his fast that this was not a political rally, it became one on Monday with the BJP and some of its NDA partners openly supporting the campaign. Party leaders used the occasion to target the Congress. Nitin Gadkari, Sharad Yadav and Subramanian Swamy shared the dais with Ramdev and pledged their support while criticising the policies of the UPA government. TDP leader Nama Nageshwara Rao, BJP MP Vijay Goel and Akali Dal representatives too were present on the dais. While Gadkari targeted Manmohan Singh and P Chidambaram, Swamy trained his guns on Congress president Sonia Gandhi raking up her foreign origin. “It is a fight between Om and Rome,” he said. Ramdev, however, tried to play down the NDA’s presence by thanking a list of other political parties. “I want to thank Chandrababu Naidu, Naveen Patnaik, AB Bardhan, Prakash Ambedkar, Shiv Sena, Sharad Yadav and Nitish Kumar for supporting my campaign. The government will fall like a pack of cards,” he said. Before asking his supporters to march towards Parliament, the yoga guru shed all inhibitions and raised a slogan: “Congress hatao, desh bachao”. Covering their heads with black bands, thousands of supporters holding the Tricolour and banners started moving to Parliament when the police stopped them for flouting prohibitory orders that banned more than five people from assembling. Congress leaders reacted sharply to the developments. General secretary Janardan Dwivedi said, “Now his [Ramdev] mask is off. All our apprehensions about the politics of this movement and the hands that are guiding it so far have come true.” He said some time back the “other self-appointed crusader [Anna Hazare] kept saying they have nothing to do with politics”. “Now they have decided to take the political plunge... We have information that they have decided to opt out of the assembly elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh [both have BJP governments]. They will contest the polls in Delhi and other areas.” Ravi Shankar Prasad, BJP chief spokesperson, said the party would give “moral support to anyone, be it Anna Hazare or Baba Ramdev, fighting against black money”.