Baba Ramdev snubs government; to go ahead with fast

Yoga guru and political crusader Baba Ramdev is not just concerned about tracing and retrieving black money stashed away in Swiss and other foreign banks but also wants the corrupt to get ‘life’ or strung high, the gallows. Death for the wrongdoer, especially the corrupt, like they do in China!     

He also wants some root-and-branch changes in the Constitution itself. He wants the president and the prime minister to be elected directly by the people. His government interlocutors have been trying to convince him that some of his demands were sensible, even feasible, but there were others which cannot be accepted because that would mean changing the Constitution.

The government has been telling the yoga man that political processes and administrative procedures cannot be done away with while dealing with important issues. It appears that the UPA-II government wants to pit Ramdev against Anna Hazare and his associates and it would like differences and rifts to appear in sections of civil society.

Meanwhile, Prime minister Manmohan Singh has made it clear that he was not averse to issue an Ordinance to punish the corrupt. As Ramdev wants black money traced and declared as “national asset” rather than the corrupt shown any concessions but should be punished severely, the Prime Minister was keen that some government response should be visible.

His own image has been dented in the past one year due to one or the other scam and he doesn’t want to be seen to be protecting the corrupt. He seems to have made up his mind and was willing to take firm action as was seen on the “nuclear deal issue”.

Sources close to the PM told DNA on condition of anonymity that he decided to “walk an extra mile with Ramdev to send the right signal” to countrymen. He personally went through the 12-point memorandum given to him by Ramdev and exchanged three letters with him.  It was at his instance that Union Home minister P Chidambaram issued directive to the Delhi Police to allow the Yoga Guru to hold his month-long Yoga camp.

Sources also mention that the PM was keen to bring his office under the Lok Pal bill but the issue remained hanging giving an extra edge to the civil society activists like Anna Hazare. Now, the PM has taken command and was handling the Ramdev issue himself. It was largely because of this reason that he sent not only the ministers to the airport but also his principal secretary TKA Nair and cabinet secretary KM Chandrashekhar.