Emerging from the shadows of his botched anti-graft agitation last year, after it was broken up by the Delhi Police, Yoga guru Baba Ramdev was back in action on Sunday with a joint protest with activist Anna Hazare.
And the two anti-corruption crusaders announced their intention to launch a mass agitation against the Centre on August 9-- when the Quit India movement against the British rule in the country began in 1942-- if the Lokpal Bill was not passed by Parliament.
Accompanied by their supporters, Hazare and Ramdev demanded action on black money stashed abroad and against corruption in the government system. Incidentally, the duo had come together on a public platform for the first time since their well crafted one-day protest at Jantar Mantar.
Ramdev, meanwhile, targeted the Prime Minister yet again. Contending that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was an “honest person”, Ramdev said that the country expected him to do his political duties also honestly. “The Prime Minister was forced to make a statement on illegal mining. We all know that Manmohan Singh is an honest person and we all respect him. But people expect him to make his Cabinet, corruption free...Please fulfil your democratic duties,” he said during his address to the nearly 3000-strong crowd.
The Yoga guru, whose earlier attempt to grab the limelight on the issue of administrative corruption had ended in a PR disaster, said that in the absence of punitive action against corruption and black money, there will be a “fight to (the) finish” on August 9. Clearly, Ramdev eclipsed Hazare in terms of the visibility factor on Sunday when the one-day protest got underway at Jantar Mantar. While the “I am Anna” caps were conspicuous by their absence, the cut-outs of Ramdev dotted the protest venue.
“From today (Sunday), we are intensifying our protest to bring back black money stashed abroad and want all the countrymen to be part of the fight to (the) finish by August.”
“We will hit the streets not in lakhs but in crores in the coming days demanding that black money be declared a national treasure and measures be taken to bring it back,” Ramdev added.
However, apart from the good response it evoked from the denizens of the capital, the protests scheduled across state capitals elicited only a lukewarm response.
Earlier in the day, Ramdev had gone to Tikri Kalan on the Delhi border to pay tributes to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose at Azad Hind Gram and then joined Hazare at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial in Rajghat.
Concurring with Ramdev, Hazare said: “We will talk about the course of action and nature of campaigning in the future.” He was accompanied by his aides Arvind Kejriwal, former IPS officer Kiran Bedi and Manish Sisodia.