NEW DELHI, March 24, 2014
Modi attends Ramdev’s Yog Mahotsav
The Hindu
BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Baba Ramdev during
Yoga Mahotsav at Ramlila ground,in New Delhi on Sunday. Photo: Sandeep
Saxena
Previous governments failed to promote yoga, says Gujarat Chief Minister
BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi attended
the Yog Mahotsav organised by yoga guru Baba Ramdev at Ramlila Maidan on
Sunday.
Touted to be an apolitical event, organised
to pay homage to martyrs Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, however
failed to remain completely apolitical with the presence of the Gujarat
Chief Minister before an ever enthusiastic crowd and the speakers,
barring Mr. Modi, talking about “nation building by exercising the right
choice in the upcoming general elections”.
Addressing
the gathering before offering the mike to Mr. Modi, the yoga guru said:
“I hear people say that there is gloom all over. But I feel that India
is all set to come out of a bad phase.”
While Mr.
Modi refrained from making a political speech, he heaped praise on the
yoga guru stating “the issues raised by him [black money, corruption and
misgovernance] were his own and these have become a cause of worry for
many”.
Asserting that the yoga guru was not
affiliated to any party or an individual, Mr. Modi said: “He is pained
due to the state of the system. He has a fire within himself as to why
bad things are happening in the country, why there is black money, why
this corruption, why this bad governance? His issues are such, which are
liked by people like me. But there are many people whose sleep vanishes
when he rakes up these issues.”
Without naming the
Congress or the UPA government, Mr. Modi said the previous governments
“failed to promote yoga which has the potential to become an ambassador
of the country before the world”.
Mr. Modi also
tried to lay down his vision for the country over the next decade by
stating that the “country needs to take a pledge on the martyrs' day to
transform India into a country that provides employment, housing, power,
drinking water and toilets etc. to the poorest of the poor”.
Earlier,
the BJP leader and the yoga guru honoured the family members of the
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru and Chandrasekhar Azad.
