The Baba Bandwagon

TAMIL NADU

In Chennai,hundreds of people gathered Saturday morning to take part in the fast,organised by the Chennai chapters of Bharat Swabhiman Trust and Patanjali Yogpeeth. Members of a host of local organisations,including a few small political outfits,marked their presence at the fast. Cadres of RSS,BJP workers and a regional organisation,Hindu Makkal Katchi,made up for most of the crowd. Similar protests were held in Coimbatore,Villupuram,Kancheepuram,Salem and Namakkal.

GUJARAT

Baba Ramdev found support from RSS,VHP and other fringe rightist organisations in the state. Gujarat RSS chief Amrutbhai Kadiwala went to the fast venue,outside Town Hall,Ahmedabad. In Godhra,alleged Ramdev supporters burned posters of Bollywood actors Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan,to vent their ire over the stars not endorsing the Ramdev do in Delhi. In Vadodara,the event started with an altercation between the police and the fast enthusiasts,after cops declined permission to hold the programme.

KARNATAKA

Around 150 people assembled at the Freedom Park in Bengaluru,Saturday. The protest,held under the aegis of Baba Ramdev’s Bharat Swabhiman Trust,was led by Swami Divya Gyana Nanda,who runs an ashram here. The local swami,who spoke at the start of the fast,compared Baba Ramdev’s protest to the Quit India movement,and said while 8 lakh people rose to support the protest against the British,“more should rise to join Baba Ramdev in his protest against corruption”. In Belgaum,where a protest was organised outside the deputy commissioner’s office,Sri Rama Sene leader Pramod Mutalik was an attendee. In Bellary,BJP leader and minister in the BSY government,B Sreeramulu,part of the Reddy brothers group of mining businessmen-cum-politicians,also expressed support.

JAMMU

Seven members of the state unit of Bharat Swabhiman and Patanjali Yog Samiti went on an indefinite fast at the Municipal Park in Purani Mandi area,where hundreds of people raising slogans against corruption and demanding that the Centre bring back blacked money. Shiv Sena activists,led by their secretary general Ashok Gupta,took out a rally from Rani Park and later burnt the effigy of corruption at Parade Ground,while Duggar Pradesh Party president Uday Chand led a dharna outside Raj Bhawan against corruption. The Socialist Democratic Party and National Panthers Party also backed the yoga guru.

KERALA

A day-long protest was organised here and in Kochi by Bharath Swabhiman Trust,to express solidarity with Baba Ramdev. The events in Kerala were supported by the Sangh Parivar’s Swadeshi Jagaran Manch,apart from Kerala Hindu Aikya Vedi,a platform of all Hindu outfits in the state. Poet Narayana Kurup inaugurated the fasts in Thiruvananthapuram. Saffron leader and state general secretary of Kerala Hindu Aikya Vedi,Kummanam Rajashekharan,sat through the fast of 40-odd persons in Thiruvananthapuram.

Andhra Pradesh

Former bureaucrat and Lok Satta Party President Jayaprakash Narayan pledged his support. Narayan,who resigned from IAS to join politics,declared support for the Bharat Swabhiman Group,which organised a hunger strike at Indira Park in Hyderabad.

Madhya Pradesh

Despite the RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Kisan Sangh extending its full support,the fast in Bhopal turned out to be only symbolic. By Saturday evening,the Neelam Park venue had less than 50 supporters. Speakers had a tough time explaining the yoga guru’s long list of demands. Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had attended Ramdev’s programme last week in Betul,but the Saturday turnout did not reflect his open support for the campaign.

CHANDIGARH

Sources said that across Punjab,supporters of Bharat Sangharsh Sanghathan sat on hunger strikes and many supporters of RSS and BJP went to show their support. However,active Congress leaders and workers kept themselves away. Former health minister and senior BJP leader Baldev Raj Chawla sat on a one-day token hunger strike in Amritsar.