Congress targets Baba Ramdev on black money

After yoga guru Baba Ramdev was slapped with scores of alleged land laws and stamp duty violation cases, the ruling Congress has again started targeting him and this time, the black money issue is at the top.

The state Congress chief Kishore Upadhyay, along with hundreds of ruling party workers, on Thursday held a dharna at Haridwar against Baba Ramdev for failing to honour his promise to bring back unaccounted money stashed abroad, during the Lok Sabha election campaign.

"We have sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi reminding the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government of the promises made to the people of the country, particularly with regard to recovering and getting the black money stashed in foreign banks," Upadhyay said.

Upadhyay said Baba Ramdev had emphatically promised to the people of the country that the black money would be brought back within 100 days of the BJP government coming to power. Baba Ramdev had given all sort of details about this black money abroad and BJP leadership had gone to the extent of announcing that if brought back, this huge amount of money stashed in bank accounts abroad could solve the problem of poverty in the country, he claimed.

"You must tell the people of the country that when would you fulfill your promises that once the black money is brought back, each family would be given Rs 15 lakh, a pension of Rs 25,000 and rebate on all forms of taxes," Upadhyay said.

On the clean Ganga project, the Congress leader said BJP also used the issue of purity of Ganga and the need to clean the holy river for political gains. While BJP politicised this issue, the former Rajiv Gandhi government had actually launched the clean Ganga mission in 1986 but the party never politicised the issue and never attempted to reap political dividends.

"People of Uttarakhand are particularly hurt by the fact that there is no attempt by the central government to work for maintaining the purity of Ganga at its origin and in the state of its birth. The government must make announcement on this issue," Upadhyay said.

The state government has already registered 96 cases against Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust owned by the yoga guru in Haridwar. Majority of the cases are of alleged violation of the stamp duty and land laws. An inquiry conducted by the district magistrate of Haridwar has also found violations of certain land laws in this regard. However, the government has taken no action so far.