Nitin Gadkari and Sharad Yadav appeared on Baba Ramdevs stage at Ramlila Maidan Monday before the yoga guru began a dramatic march to Parliament that ended in the preventive custody of police,and triggered massive traffic gridlocks in the heart of the national capital. We will support Baba in everything that he wants in this fight, the BJP president declared. This is not a political movement,Baba has no political ambitions and we are not looking for political gains out of this. We are here only in the national interest. Though Gadkari has expressed his admiration for Ramdev in the past,including touching his feet in public,this is the first time that the BJP has openly allied itself with the Babas campaign against corruption and black money. NDA convener Sharad Yadav said that the simple,honest Anna Hazare had been misguided by some people from Delhi. Both Yadav and Gadkari stressed that an independent CBI was the key to ending corruption. Gadkari said the UPA government was propped up not by its allies but by CBI. Representatives of the Shiromani Akali Dal,another NDA partner,were present on the dais,as was Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy,who described Ramdevs agitation as a battle between Om and Rome,an allusion to Congress president Sonia Gandhi. The Telugu Desam Party and Bahujan Samaj Party sent their representatives,Lok Sabha MP from Khammam Nama Nageswara Rao and former UP minister Bhagwati Prasad,respectively. Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray and former CPI general secretary A B Bardhan were named as having sent their best wishes. Biju Janata Dal Rajya Sabha member Rabinarayan Mohapatra had taken the stage on Sunday. Organisers also claimed the support of Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav who,however,chose to stay away. In Parliament,Mulayam said,Our party is against black money. Whoever talks about bringing back black money,we will support (him). His party colleague and Rajya Sabha MP Ram Gopal Yadav,however,took a potshot at the politicians on the Babas stage: Only those people who dont trust their cadres and feel that they cannot win elections without the support of others do such things. I will not go to any such stage. BSP supremo Mayawati pledged her support to Ramdev. We have supported every such organisation and stage which is above party politics and agitating against corruption. This is a serious matter and all political parties should rise above party politics and make efforts to end corruption, she said outside Parliament. Speaking at Ramlila Maidan,Ramdev gave the war cry of Congress hatao,desh bachao,adding that if both the SP and BSP withdrew support,this government will fall like a pack of cards. He declared,You (the UPA) cannot get away by saying that the BJP supports this movement. Why are you so scared of the BJP? They were the last ones to come out in support. They are the principal opposition party. The Congress has to be defeated at all cost. Speaking on stage,Gadkari attacked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P Chidambaram directly,ignoring the Babas principle of not taking names of individuals. Why are only Suresh Kalmadi and A Raja being made scapegoats when the Prime Minister and Chidambaram both had signed the (2G and CWG) files and whatever happened was with their consent? he asked. The Baba and his supporters,estimated to number around 7,000,were met at Ranjit Singh flyover,barely half a kilometre from Ramlila Maidan,by a strong police force,heavy barricading and a line of DTC buses parked bumper-to-bumper. Ramdev,riding atop a bus,was detained,and an attempt was made to take him to Bawana,leading to a three-hour crawl through central Delhi before the police took him to Ambedkar Stadium. Late in the evening,despite the police having announced he was free to leave,Ramdev remained inside the stadium.
