Though Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar strongly criticized the UPA government’s pre-dawn June 5 crackdown on Baba’s fasting venue the Janata Dal (United) appears to have a slightly different take on the issue.

For Nitish Kumar, who strongly dissocated himself from his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi in June last year, it would be difficult to justify Yoga Guru’s alleged proximity to the Sangh Parivar. The party is finding it excruciatingly difficult to explain the shot showing Ramdev flanked by the likes of Sadhvi Rithambara of Babri Masjid demolition fame.

The BJP is a national party and any agitation against the Congress party and Manmohan Singh is likely to help it politically. But the case of Janata Dal (United) is different. It is a state-level party, always trying to improve its image among the minorities.

Too much criticizing Congress would amount to flogging a dead horse as the party, virtually does not exists in Bihar. The Janata Dal (United) is weighing its option carefully and do not want to unnecessarily jeopardise its politics by going too far with the BJP on the issue.

The problem with the Janata Dal (United) is that RJD chief Lalu Yadav emerged as the first non-Congress leader to openly come out against Baba Ramdev after the police action though when the Yoga Guru was in Patna a few years back he went to meet the then Railway Minister. However, it was last year for the first time that Lalu said that Baba Ramdev Baura Gayen Hain (he has gone crazy). That was the time when the Baba gave hint of jumping into politics.

With Lalu going all out against the Baba the Janata Dal (United) is bound to take just the opposite stand. But the question is: to what extent.

Besides, the Janata Dal (United) is closely watching whether Baba’s popularity graph is going up or coming down after the June 5 episode. Though there may be many criticism of the government action, the big question is why a Gandhi like Satyagrahi fled from the scene after seeing the police, which just went there to deport him.

Howsoever loudly the BJP and Ramdev equate the incident with Jallianwala Bagh nobody is going to buy their exaggerated version. Over 300 people were killed and four times more injured in Jallianwala Bagh in Amristsar in 1919 while only a few people, including several policeman, got injured on June 5 crackdown.

It needs to be reminded that whenever the British police would come to arrest Gandhiji he would gracefully surrender and would not jump from any stage and escape the venue clad in woman’s dress. If Ramdev would have offered to surrender there would have been nothing wrong in it. He would have scored over the government and emerged as hero.

Not only that there is no trace in history of Gandhi or his supporters brandishing sword in any of his satyagrah or fast. It is because of this reason that Ramdev suddenly deemed it fit to pose himself as Shivaji a day after the crackdown.

Ramdev’s business deal and the alleged shady character of his right-hand man has also landed many of his supporters in trouble. The Janata Dal (United) in Bihar may make a re-think and not go all out in backing his movement.

The Janata Dal (United) initially thought that Ramdev would praise the state government as Anna Hazare in the beginning did. But than Anna took a U-turn on Gujarat and there can be no guarantee that he may do so in case of Bihar too because reports of rampant corruption in the state has now started filtering out. But since Ramdev has not yet given any certificate to the Nitish government here the Janata Dal (United) too would not go too far in applauding all what he is doing. Unlike the BJP it has entirely different constituency to nurse and sooner or later will have to take its own stand. The best thing the Janata Dal (United) can do is to pray privately that the agitation simply peter out soon. A strong section of the party may accept Ramdev as Shivaji, but they are not prepared to equate Manmohan Singh with Aurangzeb as they may have to make some deal in the future.

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