The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) Thursday slammed Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s defence of the police crackdown on yoga guru Baba Ramdev and said the action was “undemocratic and dictatorial”.
Sunil Ambekar, national organising secretary of the RSS-affiliated student body, said Chidambaram was “helplessly” trying to defend his undemocratic and dictatorial misdeeds at Ramlila ground.
“It is shameless (on the part of the government) that the whole central government, including the prime minister, is defending such atrocities. Chidabaram’s tirade against anti-corruption activists is understandable. The Congress has panicked,” Ambekar said in a statement here.
Charging Chidambaram with introducing participatory notes as financial instrument when he was the finance minister which facilitated “money laundering through capital markets”, the ABVP leader said the minister too was “a major party” to corruption.
“Also, he was party to appointing and defending corrupt bureaucrat P.J. Thomas as central vigilance commissioner.”
Referring to the home minister’s declaration Wednesday of ABVP’s backing to the anti-corruption movement in the country, Ambekar asked if there was anything wrong in their support to an anti-graft protest.
“ABVP launched a new forum called Youth Against Corruption (YAC) on May 12. Now the owners of this YAC are the youth of the nation. ABVP not only supported Gandhian Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev, it will also support anybody, even from the Congress, who come out of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government to sincerely join this movement,” he said.
Noting that the Congress under then prime minister Indira Gandhi had imposed emergency in mid-1970s against an anti-corruption movement in which ABVP also played a prominent role, Ambekar said his Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed student body was not afraid of threats from the government, and will defeat such designs.
Mr. Chidabaram known for his honesty and efficient administration; but his blind folded support of mid-night action on hapless and helpless should cannot be appreciated with run of the mill approach. He should rise above his partisan compulsions, at least to some extent. He is a very respected personality, though he belongs much maligned political out fit.