Author: Express News Service
Publication: The New Indian Express
Date: June 6, 2011
URL: http://expressbuzz.com/nation/crackdown-naked-fascism-says-advani/281541.html
Reacting strongly to the midnight crackdown
on Baba Ramdev, BJP leader L K Advani on Sunday urged President Pratibha Patil
to convene an emergency session of the Parliament to debate it, besides discussing
the issues of corruption and retrieval of black money from abroad.
Speaking to journalists here, Advani condemned
the clampdown on the yoga guru and his followers and described the police
action as "naked fascism" that reminded him of the Jalianwallah
Bagh massacre.
"I did not expect this kind of action.
They were peaceful protestors. Not only was the Baba arrested but women and
children were beaten up."
Demanding an apology from Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi to Ramdev and the country for the
incident, Advani said the event might be a turning point in the political
history of India just like the infamous Emergency that was imposed in 1975.
Urging President Pratibha Patil not to be
a "passive observer" to the developments, he said the whole country
expected her to be proactive and demanded that she call for an emergency session
of Parliament.
If the government did not concede the demand
for an emergency session, it would still have to face the opposition in Parliament
in the monsoon session.
Stating that the yoga guru had endorsed his
campaign against black money in 2009, he said Ramdev also spoke on retrieving
the illegally hoarded money in his discourses.
On the charge that Ramdev's hunger strike
had the tacit support of the Sangh Parivar, he said that "this was the
constant refrain" that echoed even during the legendary leader Jaiprakash
Narayan's movement.
Hitting out at the Congress for its claim
that action was taken on corruption issues, he said it happened only because
of the intervention of the Supreme Court. "Right from the PM to the finance
and home ministers, all defended them (those accused of corruption),"
he said.
On the Jan Lokpal issue, he said: "There
is corruption in the country not because of lack of laws, but due to lack
of political will to punish the corrupt."
Asked especially about corruption charges
against his party-run government in Karnataka, he candidly admitted that he
was not happy with the situation there. Advani was in Chennai to participate
in the wedding of Rohan Murthy and Lakshmi Venu.
The groom is the son of Infosys founder N
R Narayana Murthy and the bride the daughter of the chairman of TVS Motors,
Venu Srinivasan
