Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has held Prime Minister Manmohan Singh responsible for the “barbaric” police action against yoga guru Baba Ramdev and nearly a lakh of his innocent supporters and said this marked “the beginning of the end of the Congress-led UPA government rule at the Centre.”
Describing the police action as “Ravanlila” at the Ramlila grounds in Delhi, Mr. Modi said the incident reminded the people of the Emergency days of 1975. People did not spare the then Congress government for its repressive actions, likewise they would not allow the present “barbaric” Congress government to survive.
Mr. Modi — who converted a function to lay the foundation of a polytechnic college in his Assembly constituency of Maninagar on Sunday into a political gathering following the midnight police swoop on Baba Ramdev — wanted to know that if the Prime Minister himself was honest, what prevented him from taking concrete action against corruption and unearthing black money. He said the Delhi police were directly under the control of the Central government and the Prime Minister could not escape responsibility for the midnight action.
Mr. Modi said Dr. Singh's “mere blunt responses” to all questions on corruption and black money with “I don't know and I have no knowledge” were neither the proof of his innocence, nor would any longer be acceptable to the people. “He must come clean on the issue and accept responsibility for the barbaric police repression against innocent women and children at the Ramlila grounds,” Mr. Modi said.
Linking Hasan Ali's recent arrest to the “undemocratic” actions at the Ramlila grounds, Mr. Modi said the Congress leaders and the government were now worried that the “real faces” who had stacked black money in crores of rupees in foreign banks would become public. Hence it had become jittery and wanted to crush Baba Ramdev's movement with an iron hand. He clearly hinted that Hasan Ali was a mere frontman of the top Congress leaders, who owned crores of rupees in black. Otherwise, why should the Congress government be worried about the Ramdev agitation since it was not directed against any particular political party or the government, he asked.
Mr. Modi, however, was confident that the Congress government would not succeed in its design to crush the agitation. “The country has woken up to the menace of corruption in high offices and black money and will not stop at anything short of total eradication of these evils,” Mr. Modi said.
Vishwa Hindu Parishad international general secretary Pravin Togadia, who was at Sidhpur in Patan district in connection with a VHP training centre, while condemning the action against Baba Ramdev said all the sadhus and sants in the country would now rise against the Congress government. He demanded the Prime Minister's resignation for unleashing the “unprovoked repressive action.”
Meanwhile, thousands of supporters of Baba Ramdev staged street demonstrations, burning effigies and shouting slogans, in different cities and towns of Gujarat to protest his arrest. The agitators said they would continue the fast till the Centre accepted all his demands.
