Baba Ramdev to silence critics by declaring assets today

Haridwar, Jun 9: In a bold step that hopes to silence detractors on Baba Ramdev's multi-crore empire, he has announced that he will furnish details of his assets Thursday evening. He will also make public details of the assets of trusts and firms associated with him. Rubbishing all rumours that his empire was built illegally, he strongly said, “The money I have comes from the blood and sweat of my people."

He also spoke on how the government is indulging in “character assassination." The government had initiated a probe into Baba Ramdev's empire by the Enforcement Directorate and Income Tax earlier.

Baba Ramdev's comment on Wednesday that he was going to set up a 11,000 strong youth army who will be trained in martial arts to combat any aggression from the government had received a lot of flak from both the civil society and bureaucrats. Ramdev had declared, “I appeal that 20 young men from every district should come here. We will train them in both shahstra (vedas) and shastra (weapons)." The declaration has apparently not gone down well with the government. Home Minister, P Chidambaram seeing it as a veiled threat stated, “Let him do that and the law will deal with it."

Acharya Balkrishna, a close-aide of Ramdev who is himself entangled in a controversy over his nationality and an ED probe, also cleared the air on the planned army to be set up by Baba Ramdev and said, “The sena will be for self-defence ... it is not to harm anybody but for defence of our own people."

He also spoke of Ramdev's decision to divulge details of his assets and said, “We will come out with financial details of Patanjali Yogapeeth and all our companies by Thursday. We will upload it on our website also. It will have financial details of Patanjali and other businesses and companies associated with it. It will have all financial details."

In spite of reports of Ramdev's health concerns as a result of the fasting, he vowed to continue his fast and said that he will stand by the thousands who are standing by him.

OneIndia News