Diggy and Thuggee

Digvijay Singh went to press asserting that Baba Ramdev was a cheat, “thug” ('He cheated people. He is a thug. …. He had said he was going to have a yoga shivir but he was trying to agitate people)

Kapil Sibal preached in his inimitable style that a yoga guru should teach yoga aasan, not political aasan.

There are big issues here: the capacity of the Indian government and its ministers/ spokespersons to fudge and to prevaricate.

This is getting interesting. If the Baba was a “thug” he could not possibly teach yoga. As for political postures, what can this man teach astute politicians such as Sibal and Digvijay, pastmasters of the art of political thuggee? Were they ‘talking’ with the Baba a few days ago… quite unaware of the Baba’s thuggery!

Ramdev was whisked away to Haridwar to prevent his running riot in Delhi, said Digvijay. After the CWG, Kalmadi went about free to visit China for the Asian Games. After UPA-1, Dayanidhi Maran has moved about freely though he was reported in 2007 for the 323 BSNL phone connections and for spectrum allocation. In UPA-2 Raja and Kanimozhi were free long enough to have at least a chance to manipulate the evidence in the 2G spectrum case. Elsewhere, Shibu Soren walks about free while Courts of Law have been mulling over criminal case for over 20 years. Pappu Yadav could contest elections and become an MP despite grave cases against him. Harshad Mehta was hailed as the biggest tax-payer before getting embroiled in the suitcase issue. Satyam’s Ramalingaraju passed off for a great business-magnate. Much before these instances, Jayanti Dharma Teja took advantage of Nehru’s trust. All of them rubbed shoulders with the highest powers of the land.

In between,a venerable Babu who forgot to pay an income tax of over 10 lakhs in 1960s was exonerated and made a political party chief and an important minister. Mr. Anderson of Union Carbide was allowed safe passage before a warrant was issued. Mr. Win Chaddha, a Bofors beneficiary, flew away to a Gulf country with utter ease 24 hours before a warrant could be issued. The Quattrocchi story (Bofors, again) is more or less closed. The CBI asked for closure of the Aarushi Talwar case before the intervention by a court of law… otherwise the Talwar couple were free. No one killed Jessica.

Who is running riot in Delhi Mr. Digvijay Singh? The thugs are all over, including Mr. Sajjan Kumar of the Delhi Sikh massacre-fame

Baba Ramdev, a thug, eh? Let's concede... as all public figures are, in some degree.

Next, Hazare will be termed Anna, Bhai of Mumbai underworld parlance.