Ramdev vs UPA: Mayor stopped from entering protest site

Delhi's newly-elected mayor is more than a little peeved with the conduct of the city police. Rajni Abbi says when she went to visit the Ramlila Grounds on Sunday after the tumultuous eviction of Baba Ramdev and his followers, she was barred from entering the site by cops. Moreover she claims police tried to arrest her while she and her councillors were trying to enter the premises.

No entry: Delhi Mayor Rajni Abbi (encircled) argues with police personnel
who stopped her from entering the Ramlila Grounds on Sunday. Pic/Imtiyaz Khan

"They almost arrested me. The police team present there, immediately cancelled my permission to enter the grounds," said Abbi. The mayor yesterday wrote a letter of complaint to commissioner of police BK Gupta, asking him the reasons behind the police action.

Not welcome
"The grounds are the property of Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and no one can stop us from entering them," she added. Apparently, the corporation has taken a rent of rupees three lakh from the Baba for forty days. The civic agency had leased out the grounds for a twenty-day yoga camp, excluding ten days for preparations and ten days for wrapping up. Apart from her, BJP representatives led by senior leader VK Malhotra on Sunday staged a protest outside Ramlila Maidan to protest police action against Baba Ramdev and his supporters who were on an agitation there.

Malhotra, accompanied by nine MLAs and other local leaders, was also not allowed to enter the Maidan, leading to a vociferous argument between the activists and police. The BJP leaders also claimed they were detained by cops. Malhotra alleged that the UPA government has gone beyond even the barbaric days of emergency and even dictatorships do not perpetrate such treatment on its citizens.