New Delhi: Congress top brass, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and party chief Sonia Gandhi, are expected to deliberate, Thursday, on the situation arising out of yoga guru Ramdev's plans to go on a hunger strike on the issue of black money here from June four. A meeting of the Congress Core Group headed by Gandhi has begun at PM’s residence, 7 Race Course Road, in the backdrop of apparent differences between the party and the government over the way the issue needed to be tackled. The Core Group, which generally meets on Friday is meeting a day ahead, reflecting the concern in the party and the government over Ramdev's plans. Top Congress leaders and senior ministers, including Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony, P Chidambaram and Political Secertary to Congress chief Ahmed Patel are part of the group which decides on major policy issues. Importantly, the Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi held separate talks before the meeting of the entire Core Group. Meanwhile, Baba Ramdev has cancelled a press conference scheduled this evening in view of " serious dialogue" with government. His aides notified the media about the cancellation of the press conference at Ramlila Maidan, where he is to sit on fast from Saturday, saying the yoga guru would update the media about " conclusive" outcome tomorrow. Earlier in the day, Ramdev held a meeting with his close associates here to finalise the strategy ahead of his proposed June 4 hunger strike on black money issue and talks with the government which wants him to call off the agitation.
The yoga guru maintained that he will go ahead with the protest from June four. A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs was held a few days back to discuss Ramdev's fast and Singh had also written a letter to the yoga guru asking him not to go ahead with the fast, promising him to find a " practical and pragmatic" solution to tackle the issue of corruption. Congress has distanced itself from the government's unprecedented step of sending four senior ministers to receive Ramdev at the airport here in a bid to persuade him not to go ahead with the protest saying it was "unnecessary" and the party has "nothing to do" with it. "The party is not at all related to this entire exercise from here to the airport (ministers going to the airport to receive the Yoga Guru)," top sources in the Congress said.
The demands of the jetsetting Baba — whose acolytes recently bought him a little Scottish island to open an ashram — include:
— Tough Lokpal Bill, with a provision for death sentence for the corrupt, especially corrupt officials
— Immediate return of all black money stashed away in tax havens abroad to the country
— Declaring all wealth in foreign countries being held illegally by Indians as national property and charging those with such accounts under the sedition laws
— Abolishing Rs.1,000 and Rs.500 currency notes
— Disabling the operations of any bank which belongs to a country that is a tax haven
— Replacing the British-inherited system of governance, administration, taxation, education, law and order with a swadeshi alternative
— Reforming the electoral system to ensure that the Prime Minister is directly elected by people
— Ensuring that all citizens declare annually their incomes
— Bringing income-tax details under the Right to Information Act
— Increasing substantially the Minimum Support Price of grains
— Making wages of different categories of labourers uniform across the country
— Revoking the Land Acquisition Act, as farmers should not be deprived of their land for industry
— Promoting Hindi at the expense of English.
What Baba Ramdev wants
Special Correspondent Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who has threatened to field candidates in every Lok Sabha constituency in 2014, has stopped the Union government in its tracks with a set of demands, ranging from the serious to the bizarre.The demands of the jetsetting Baba — whose acolytes recently bought him a little Scottish island to open an ashram — include:
— Tough Lokpal Bill, with a provision for death sentence for the corrupt, especially corrupt officials
— Immediate return of all black money stashed away in tax havens abroad to the country
— Declaring all wealth in foreign countries being held illegally by Indians as national property and charging those with such accounts under the sedition laws
— Abolishing Rs.1,000 and Rs.500 currency notes
— Disabling the operations of any bank which belongs to a country that is a tax haven
— Replacing the British-inherited system of governance, administration, taxation, education, law and order with a swadeshi alternative
— Reforming the electoral system to ensure that the Prime Minister is directly elected by people
— Ensuring that all citizens declare annually their incomes
— Bringing income-tax details under the Right to Information Act
— Increasing substantially the Minimum Support Price of grains
— Making wages of different categories of labourers uniform across the country
— Revoking the Land Acquisition Act, as farmers should not be deprived of their land for industry
— Promoting Hindi at the expense of English.
