Akela
YOGA guru Baba Ramdev was on Monday banned from conducting programmes in Himachal Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Baba has been also booked in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Bihar under SC/ST Act for his “honeymoon” remarks on Congress party’s vice-president Rahul Gandhi.
Ramdev, who is supporting BJP in the ongoing MP polls, on April 25, addressing a programme in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh had said, “Rahul goes to Dalits’ houses for honeymoon and picnic.”
The Chief Electoral Officer Narinder Chauhan told media persons that Ramdev has been refused permission to hold yoga camps in Himachal Pradesh till May 16. The Chauhan said in Shimla that the request of Patanjali Yoga Peeth of Baba Ramdev to hold yoga shivir at Kangra, Chamba and Rehan” has not been granted.
Uttar Pradesh authorities also banned Ramdev’s all programmes in Lucknow and Amethi till May 16.
On Saturday, FIRs were filed against Ramdev in Maharashtra (Nagpur), Rajasthan (Jaipur), Lucknow and Sonbhadra in Uttar Pradesh and Patna in Bihar under Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Atrocities Acts.
Protesters blackened Ramdev’s poster outside his local clinic Patanjali. Activists threw slippers at a poster and burnt an effigy of the yoga guru.
Reacting on the action Ramdev alleged the government had pressurised the Election Commission to put the curbs and accused Congress of “distorting” his remarks. He also alleged that the government was stopping his yoga shivirs, “which are non-political, in an undemocratic manner”.