Cong silent, but lends support to Prime Minister

The Congress today maintained its silence on the police action at Ramdev’s protest congregation, but offered its support to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Janardan Dwivedi, the party’s chief spokesperson, said, “People become sanyasis through sacrifices. There is no bigger sanyasi than the prime minister.”

On the police action at Ramdev’s protest congregation, he said, “The government will give its reply. The Supreme Court has issued a notice and the government will respond to that.”

The party also questioned the “arbitrary wishes” of civil society torchbearers to dictate the legislative agenda of the country. As Anna Hazare and his team showed solidarity with Ramdev and boycotted the Lokpal drafting committee meeting today, Dwivedi said, “Should the Lokpal Bill be done according to the wishes of one or two people? Is this the idea of Lokpal?”

While party spokesman Manish Tiwari was present on the dais, Dwivedi took the charge of briefing to add extra weight. But he refrained from defending the government’s decision to send four ministers to airport to meet Ramdev. Dwivedi said, “The generosity shown by the government by sending ministers was misused.”

Without taking the name of Ramdev even once, Dwivedi said, “The country must realise the difference between a saint and a businessman.

The idea of satyagraha is to undertake difficulties and pain to express his viewpoints. Whatever has happened has nothing to do with satyagraha.”

When pointed out that Sonia Gandhi had written to Anna Hazare when the latter sat on hunger strike and expressed solidarity with him, Dwivedi said, “Yes. He got support because he spoke against corruption. But people should also be careful about the company he keeps.”