THE ‘MONK’ WHO FLAUNTS POWER

YOGA GURU Baba Ramdev caused a tremor in Madhya Pradesh politics when he dropped hints on keeping his options open for his political leanings. The Patanjali founder, known for his proximity to the saffron parivar, had made it amply clear that his support should not be taken for granted by the BJP as he was not averse to throwing his weight behind the Congress, of course, with a rider.

“I will not hesitate to support the Congress if the grand old party works in the interest of the country,” he declared while interacting with the media in Bhopal on February 20.

He was there to participate in the Narmada Seva Yatra, a campaign launched by the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government to create awareness among the people to make Narmada river, the lifeline of the state, clean.

The saffron-clad monk’s apparent threat comes in the wake of MP government’s decision to clear a project by soft drink giant CocaCola to set up its facility on the banks of Narmada.

Ramdev is known to be bitter critic of the cola majors, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, describing them as major polluting agents in the country.

“Multinational companies fill coffers of political parties in India. That is the reason why no state governments are willing to promote ‘swadeshi’ products and also dared to take action against the MNCs (for any of their wrongdoings)”, he observed.

Next day, the yoga master-cum-entrepreneur was greeted with a warm hug from Mr Chouhan at the function organised as part of Narmada Seva Yatra.

The development has caused unease in the camp of soft drink major.

A monk’s spell!