Diggy may be true as Balkrishna owns 99.9% of Aastha channel

New Delhi, Jun 10: Baba Ramdev's battle against corruption is turning head-side down in manner resembling the cliche 'when the hunter becomes the hunted'. After much brow-beating by the yoga guru on honesty and accountability, there are now skeletons tumbling out of his own closet and most of them do not appear to be a vengeful drive by the government to malign him.

Sample this, Balkrishna considered the yoga guru's right hand man, holds a 99.9 percent stake in the Aastha channel, made a net profit of Rs 2.30 crore on a total turnover of Rs 19.26 crore in 2009-10.

Vedic Broadcasting Limited, the company that owns Aastha channel earned Rs 18.50 crore revenue in advertisements, telecasting fees and others and its expenditure on programming, telecast and operations was Rs 9.60 crore.

Huge figures indeed for a sanyasi-run channel.

According to details available with the Registrar of Companies, Acharya Balkrishna, Ramdev's aide who has been called by Congress General Secretary as an entrepreneur than a sanyasi, holds 99.9% stake in Vedic Broadcasting.

He holds 799,250 shares out of total equity shares of 800,000. The rest of the shares are held by Muktanandji, yet another Ramdev aide, and some others. In all company details, Balkrishna and Muktanandji have not declared their parentage and have instead listed it as "disciple of Swami Shankar Dev", who some say died a few years ago under mysterious circumstances.

Interestingly, Ramdev does not own a single share in the company.

OneIndia News