Clearly distancing itself from Ramdev and without taking his name even once, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongly condemned the police action on women and children at the Ramlila ground.
While trying to take credit for the ongoing anti-corruption crusade launched by civil rights groups, the BJP leadership claimed that the entire movement against corruption and on the issue of black money against union government was started by them in 2009 when senior leader L K Advani had first raised the issue.
After having detailed discussions with the senior leadership of the principal opposition party, the BJP asked President Pratibha Patil to call an emergency session of Parliament to discuss the issues of corruption, black money and the alleged crackdown on civil rights activists who have been raising their voice against corruption and black money stashed in foreign banks abroad.
“The President should take notice and call for an emergency session of Parliament to discuss issues surrounding corruption, black money and crackdown on civil rights groups. The President should no longer remain a spectator. The people of India expect the President to be more proactive than she has been,” said Advani, who reached Chennai to attend a marriage. The BJP leadership was in Lucknow for the national executive.
Hoping to capitalise on the anti-corruption mood in the country, BJP President Nitin Gadkari stressed that Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Arun Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha were the first parliamentarians to raise the issues of 2G spectrum allocation scam and Commonwealth Games scandal in both houses of Parliament.
“The police action at Ramlila ground against women, children and elderly people reminds of emergency days and when I was watching the brutality on television last night, I was reminded of Jallianwala Bagh massacre under the British rule,” said Gadkari in Lucknow.
Left out in the anti-corruption fight against the Union government, the BJP is now starting a 24-hour long satyagrah at Rajghat from Sunday evening. The entire BJP leadership has rushed back to Delhi from Lucknow to hold a closed door meeting to strategise further course of action.
Demanding an apology from UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Congress party and the Union government against the use of force by police at Ramlila ground, the BJP claimed that action was taken against protesters on the intervening night of June 4-5 because the Congress party is scared that if names of people involved in hiding black money is revealed, then it will affect the party the most.
