Haridwar, April 26: Baba Ramdev and his band of evangelists did for Narendra Modi what the business elite stopped short of this January: unequivocally declare him the country's great hope and its only prospective Prime Minister. When Modi banded corporate biggies for his latest edition of Vibrant Gujarat in January, just after winning the Gujarat election, everyone —the Ambanis, Ratan Tata, Chanda Kochhar and Shashi Ruia — showered encomiums but did not utter the two words he was probably yearning to hear: Prime Minister. Anil Ambani, more eloquent than Mukesh, divided up Modi's first name into "Nar" and "Indra" and concluded that taken together "Narendra" meant the "lord of men". This morning, Ramdev — the yoga televangelist who presides over an empire sprawling over verdant acres in Uttarakhand — hosted a congregation of sadhus and sants enjoying a status and following independent of an organised entity like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or a religious hierarchy like those overseen by the shankaracharyas. Influential in their own spheres of geography, one of them, Ramesh Ojha of Gujarat, copied Anil and claimed the combination of "Nar+Indra" made Modi the "most appropriate and deserving" contender for prime-ministership in 2014. "Come elections and people discuss issues like negative voting and who will be the next CM or PM. It is incumbent on the electorate to elect the most suitable and deserving person, it is a religious duty," gushed Ojha, as the audience at Ramdev's Patanjali Yogpeeth clapped incessantly. "With God's blessings, the PM's chair has got the most rightful claimant. That chair deserves a Narendra who has the strength, experience, commitment and dedication. He is 'Nar' plus 'Indra'." Ramdev echoed Anil's words and counted Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Modi in the pantheon of Gujarat's illustrious sons of the soil. But he reminded Modi that the praise was caveated: "I will restart my yatra and it will not cease until Modi becomes the PM. Nobody can go against the popular tide. But the sadhus and sants are not only an integral part of the tide, they are an important aspect of it. They have the power to make and unmake five governments and can't be taken for granted." Ramdev's associate Raman Shastri recalled that the veto of rishis and munis had existed from ancient times and that Chandragupta Maurya too was a "boy from the jungles" who morphed into a legend under Chanakya's tutelage. Modi, a "legend-in-the-making", was likened to Chandragupta by Ramdev. "He did not earn his spurs by being born into a renowned family or by being a dynastic heir. He used to wash cups and saucers in a canteen his father owned," he said. Actually, the "canteen" belonged to an uncle of Modi who employed him to bail out the cash-strapped family. Modi sounded uncharacteristically humbled by the endorsements. "To be seated at the feet of the honoured sants is a blessing for anybody but to be seated in their midst is a feeling I cannot describe. I see a manifestation of motherhood in the sants," he said. "I know they have asked me to rise and take on bigger challenges. Their words are like flowers of inspiration that will give me strength in times of weakness. I seek not their blessings to aspire to a bigger office but merely to serve the people of my country along with 1.2 billion others." A source close to Modi said there were several reasons why the Gujarat chief minister had forayed into the Himalayan wilderness, albeit equipped with a helipad. Most important, Modi wishes to keep intact his bridges with a hardcore Hindu constituency, but autonomous of the VHP. His relations with the Gujarat VHP and allied clerics like Asaram Bapu plummeted after he became the chief minister. The VHP felt "used and abused" by him during and after the 2002 violence; he, on the other hand, thought the Hindutva brigade had thwarted his attempts at a "secular" re-branding. Lately, there was a flap among the VHP and RSS when the Gujarat government proposed death penalty for Maya Kodnani and Baba Bajrangi, convicted in the 2002 riots. "It was the height of cynicism on Modi's part," a VHP source said. Barring Sri Sri Vishwesara Teerth Swami of Udupi's Pejawar Math and Yogi Adityanath, the Gorakhpur MP, the gathering of pontiffs and preachers on Ramdev's dais was bereft of the VHP. The VHP, lately searching for political legitimacy, was dying to have Modi at its dharma sansad (holy congregation) during the Allahabad Kumbh. He was supposed to go but after a series of VHP statements supporting his prime ministership, he backed off. "I have never missed going to a Kumbh for as long as I remember. I was very upset when I could not this time but may be God had ordained so. It bothered me for a long time. But this is God's way of compensating me because I am here in your midst in pristine Haridwar besides the Ganga," Modi said. The source close to Modi claimed that Ramdev's networks were now "far larger and more credible and formidable" than the VHP's. "So it makes more sense to link up with him." No wonder Modi called the yoga televangelist his "twin" and said it was "more than a coincidence" that the Congress targeted them in turns.  via Top Stories - Google News http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNFWZ5BiGjX3X5bogGTvgjwARW3E0g&url=http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130427/jsp/nation/story_16833560.jsp | |||
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