Ramdev announces agitation from Oct 2, demands PM’s resignation

New Delhi : Yoga guru Baba Ramdev Saturday sought resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over a huge presumptive loss to the exchequer in coal blocks allocation and announced fresh agitation against the Congress-led UPA government from Oct 2.

Ramdev hinted that the agitation would start from Himachal Pradesh in view of the upcoming assembly elections in that state and Gujarat towards the end of this year.

The yoga guru’s campaign against the United Progressive Alliance government will continue till the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Ramdev alleged that the Congress had created a record in corruption, and now “the government is exposed”.

“About 142 coal blocks containing over 50 billion tonnes of coal worth Rs.200 lakh crore were allocated to firms related to the Congress or to those who paid heavy brokerage to the party without auction,” he said.

“If the PM, who is responsible for corruption worth Rs.200 lakh crore, is honest then who is dishonest,” asked Ramdev in a press conference here.

Saying the amount involved in the scam was much more than Rs.1.86 lakh crore estimated by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), he demanded that the licences issued for coal blocks should be cancelled.

On targeting only Congress and not the Bharatiya Janata Party whose state governments were also named in the CAG report, he said: “There are many political parties involved in this. But the Congress is in power and it has got the gold medal for scams.”

The yoga guru said that he would not join politics. “It’s not our agenda,” he added.

Blaming the Congress for trying to defame him, Ramdev said the UPA government was conspiring against his ashram and trust.

“The government is using the state machinery to harass me and my aides”.

“Some people tried to bribe the people of our ashram to defame us. We are not blaming any particular person but have evidence to prove our claims. We have lodged an FIR (First Information Report) based on the evidence,” Ramdev said.

The income tax department recently decided to cancel the registration of Baba Ramdev’s trust Patanjali as a charitable organisation and reportedly withdraw all exemptions granted to it.

“There are over five lakh charitable organisations in the country… Why is that our ‘seva’ is being termed as a business,” asked Ramdev.