Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev will campaign against United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Announcing this at an event in the state capital late Monday, Baba Ramdev said he will “actively” campaign in Amethi and Rae Bareli, parliamentary constituencies of Mr. Rahul and Ms. Gandhi respectively, and ensure that they lose the polls.
He said that he would also be canvassing for BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and wished that he becomes the next prime minister of India.
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He said he had “lots of hope and full faith” in Mr. Modi, but added that his support was for Mr. Modi and not the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“I want to see that Modi romps home with 300 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and would put in my bit in doing so,” he said.
The yoga guru said the Congress party would be decimated in the general elections. He said the Congress would be a “thing of past and part of history” after the 2014 elections.
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He attacked Congress chief Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra of amassing millions of rupees by land grabbing in Haryana. “I am sure that after the exit of the Congress government at the centre, Vadra will be booked and land behind the bars”, Ramdev said.
He, however, refused to comment on the Samajwadi Party (SP) and its poll prospects
Ramdev in the past has shared a personal rapport with SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. He is often seen ducking questions on the growing hooliganism in the party and the poor law and order situation in the state.
Ramdev also ruled out the possibility joining politics or jumping into the electoral fray and said he would never contest an election.
“I am completely ruling this out and saying categorically that neither will I join any political party nor will I contest elections,” he said.
Ramdev has been in the middle of controversy many times in the last two years after more than 100 cases were slapped on him and his Patanjali Yoga Ashram in Kankhal, Haridwar.
He has often accused the Congress government in Uttarakhand and also the central government of launching a vendetta campaign against him ever since he took up the matter of black money stashed abroad and attacked the Congress of not taking steps to bring it back.