Followers of Ramdev stage dharna. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, June 4: The Sangh Parivar and its outfits today hijacked the programme organised here in support of yoga guru Baba Ramdev’s fast against corruption and black money.

The organisers, Patanjali Yoga Samiti, were relegated to the background as the programme venue reverberated with slogans such as Jai Sri Ram, Vande maataram and Ganga mai kee jai.

Speaking on the occasion, Bajrang Dal national convener Subas Chouhan said: “The party and its cadres support the programme wholeheartedly. Our members will take Baba Ramdev’s message to the masses.” A hardliner, Chouhan had been denied permission to enter Kandhamal district in the wake of the riots triggered by Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati’s murder in 2008.

Speakers at the programme quoted the Gita and Chauhan’s speech set the tone with participants chanting “Bharat Mata ki jay” and “Jai Sri Ram”.The VHP leaders used the occasion to target the Orissa government for its failure to nab those involved in the Laxmanananda Saraswati murder case.

Arrangements had been made at the venue for the direct telecast of Ramdev’s fast in New Delhi. The organisers even managed to get the activists of the Friends of Tribal Society to join the fast programme.

For the Sangh and its affiliates, it was an opportunity to try and generate a favourable wave which has become crucial to their existence in the wake of the BJP’s drubbing in the last elections. Though Ramdev had said that his target was the system and not any particular individual, the placards at the venue spoke against UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manomohan Singh. “The biggest corruption alliance is Sonia and Manmohan,” read one of the placards.

Yet another programme in the capital was organised by Swadeshi Jagaran Manch, Bhratiya Mazdoor Sangha and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, who sought to inform the people about the initiatives taken by Ramdev to rid of the society of corruption and black money. Significantly, with RSS and its affiliates coming to the forefront, leaders of the BJP were conspicuous by their absence at the venue of pro-Ramdev programmes.

Without making a reference to Ramdev, chief minister Naveen Patnaik said: “Our government has always been against corruption and will continue to be do so.”

Interestingly, RSS and its frontal organisation had maintained silence when an FIR was filed against Ramdev at Puri for his controversial statement on the entry of non-Hindu devotees to the Jagannath Temple during his visit to the state in January.

During that visit on January 19, he had said that any devotee irrespective of his religious identity, should be allowed to enter the temple for “darshan”. He had, however, maintained that people who were drunk or chewing tobacco should not be allowed entry.