Sibal, Sahay meet Ramdev

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In a last-ditch effort to dissuade yoga guru Baba Ramdev from going ahead with his proposed fast against black money from Saturday, Union ministers Kapil Sibal and Subodh Kant Sahay met him at a hotel here, activists from Ramdev’s movement said.

The talks were held at The Claridges hotel, sources said. To avoid attention, Ramdev entered the premises through the staff entrance, they added.

The hotel has been selected for the talks as a “neutral venue”, the sources added. The ministers did not want to go to the Ramlila Ground, the venue of Ramdev’s proposed agitation, as it would have given an impression of the government giving too much importance to the yoga guru, the sources said.

Nor did Ramdev want to go to any of the ministerial offices as it may have given a wrong signal to his followers, they added. Before leaving for the hotel, Ramdev told his followers, who have arrived in big numbers in Delhi, that the fast was on schedule.

He said that the black money stashed abroad should be declared a national property. He added that barring one or two issues, there was a consensus among the government and him during their earlier talks.

As the government feared a repeat of a mass movement on the lines of that by social activist Anna Hazare in April or one even bigger, the Congress core committee, comprising Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, party president Sonia Gandhi and other leaders, met on Tuesday and decided to continue negotiations with the yoga guru.

Some leaders of the party, including general secretary Digvijay Singh, want the government to dissuade Ramdev from going on fast, and to arrest him if he does not call off the agitation, a Congress leader told IANS. Criticising the Ramdev movement, Digvijay Singh said that the yoga guru was more of a industrialist than a saint. He alleged that Ramdev took large amounts of money from people for seating them in the special rows in his yoga camps.

After the meeting with the ministers, Ramdev has plans to go to Bhagat Singh Park in the city to pay his respect to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev as he believes that these martyrs contributed enormously to India gaining freedom, a spokesperson said. The yoga guru also plans to visit Rajghat, he added.