Ramdev slams Sonia on lease of land

IANS/Solan, Himachal Pradesh

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev yesterday accused Congress chief Sonia Gandhi of working against his herbal centre project in Himachal Pradesh and alleged that a lease of land to his Patanjali Yogpeeth was revoked on her direction.

“Sonia Gandhi was responsible for cancelling the land lease which was given to me to set up a herbal centre. The state government took action on the direction of Delhi while people of this hill state never wanted to do so,” he said at a public meeting here.

The government on Friday took possession of the land near Sadhupul in Solan allotted to the Patanjali Yogpeeth for setting up its branch.

The government’s plea was that the land was allotted by the previous Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in 2010 by violating statutory provisions.

However, the Himachal Pradesh High Court earlier in the day directed the state government to maintain the status quo on the land.

The court restrained the government from demolishing the construction of the herbal centre or changing the nature or possession of the land until the case is disposed of.

The land originally belonged to the erstwhile royal family of Patiala, to which Congress leader and former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh belongs.

The Congress government in Himachal said the land, valued around Rs350-400mn, was allotted to the yoga guru for a one-time lease payment of Rs1.7mn for 99 years at a token annual fee of Re1.

Revenue Minister Kaul Singh Thakur said the government found a number of discrepancies in the allotment of land.

The land could not have been given on lease to Ramdev’s trust, which is a commercial organisation. Also, the lease was signed in the name of Acharya Balkrishan, who is allegedly of Nepali origin and facing a Central Bureau of Investigation probe.