Attacking the UPA Government and threatening a fight to the finish by August on the black money issue, Anna Hazare and yoga guru Ramdev sat on a day-long fast protesting against corruption on Sunday.
In their first appearance on a public platform after a year, Hazare and Ramdev arrived at the protest venue of Jantar Mantar together on Sunday morning after visiting Mahatma Gandhi's memorial and Shaheed Park.
Ramdev began his campaign issuing a warning to the Government to get ready for a “fight to the finish” by August and asked Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh to make his Cabinet “corruption free.”
“You (the Prime Minister) are an honest person personally. People respect you for that. But you hold the high constitutional post. You have to take care of the political, constitutional and democratic responsibility. Your personal honesty is not enough. You have to be politically honest too. You have to keep your Cabinet honest. Then people will respect you (more),” Ramdev told his supporters, who were waiving the tricolour.
Before beginning his fast, he told reporters that he was intensifying the protest to bring back black money stashed away abroad and said: “I want the countrymen to be part of the fight to finish by August.”
Ramdev also invoked the name of Rajiv Gandhi saying that when the former prime minister had talked about only 15 paise out of a rupee reaching the intended beneficiary, it was “ideal” but “when we talk about it, then we are called “khalnayaks (villains).”
The protest also had its share of drama when a man in his late twenties and claiming to be a ‘volunteer' of the Team Anna campaign, tried to attempt self-immolation alleging that he was mistreated by prominent members of India Against Corruption.