My 24news,6 June 2011
NEW DELHI: Manmohan Singh government's high-risk move in evicting Baba Ramdev from the Capital after a midnight police raid on his camp at Ramlila Maidan here has brought together rival factions of civil society, besides exposing the Centre and Congress leadership to sharp attacks from political opponents.
Just hours after the dramatic police raid on Ramlila Maidan, Anna Hazare's camp announced that they would boycott the meeting of the joint Lokpal panel scheduled for Monday and sit on a one-day hunger strike on June 8 as a mark of solidarity against the midnight strike against Baba, who has been externed from the Capital for 15 days.
The Hazare group also endorsed Ramdev's demand for an ordinance to declare Indian funds illegally stashed abroad as national asset and to provide for means to bring the money back. Even Aruna Roy, member of the Sonia Gandhi-led National Advisory Council who had publicly expressed reservations about civil society's anti-corruption agitation, joined the chorus of condemnation.
The Hazare camp upped the ante, laying down conditions for its further participation in talks on the Lokpal bill. It demanded that government clarify its stand on contentious issues like whether PM and judiciary should be brought under the proposed Lokpal bill, and also that the discussions in the joint panel be telecast live.
Earlier, thousands of policemen laid siege to Ramdev's camp site and cleared it of it thousands of supporters while externing him from the Capital for 15 days. Baba on Sunday evening was stopped at Muzaffarnagar while on his way to Noida to start a fresh dharna.
The Hazare and Ramdev camps appeared to have drifted away for a number of reasons stretching from genuine differences of opinion on issues to the presence of RSS-leaning figures in the Ramdev camp to the desire to take control of the anti-graft campaign. In fact, government's moves to indulge Ramdev capped by the red carpet rolled out for him on Thursday when four Cabinet ministers and the cabinet secretary turned up at the airport to receive him had led to apprehension that the yoga guru was being promoted as a counterweight to Hazare Campaign.
In sharp contrast, the Hazare team came out in open support for Baba, keeping their differences aside. Speaking in Delhi, Hazare accused the government of throttling democracy, and said civil society would launch protests throughout the country to "teach government a lesson". "There might have been some faults with Baba Ramdev's agitation but at midnight, beating up people -- women, children and elderly -- is a blot on democracy," Hazare said. He announced that he would sit on a day-long fast at Jantar Mantar on June 8.
