INDIAN GOVT FIRMLY DECIDES THAT NO SENIOR MINISTERS WILL MEET RAMDEV

NEW DELHI: Under severe attack over rushing senior ministers to the airport to meet Baba Ramdev, the government is understood to have decided that senior ministers, especially Pranab Mukherjee, will not meet him again for further talks. Party sources said that Mukherjee will meet Ramdev but it was the turn of the yoga guru and his team to come to him for any negotiations. 
The party would not mind ministers like Subodh Kant Sahay, who has good equation with Ramdev, conducting a dialogue, the sources said.

The decision came after serious reservations were expressed by the Congress on Wednesday's extraordinary step of holding a dialogue with Ramdev in the airport.  The issue was discussed at the Congress core group meeting attended by Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and some other leaders on Thursday evening.

Senior party leader Digvijay Singh, who has been critical of Ramdev, met Mukherjee Thursday night and expressed the party's concerns over the issue, the sources said.

The party was so cut up on the issue that none of the spokespersons made any comment on the issue except a brief remark by Abhishek Singhvi who said the government's efforts to reach out to Ramdev should not be seen as a sign of weakness.

"As a responsive and sensitive government, we are engaging constructively to find real and practical solutions in national interest. This should not be mistaken as a sign of weakness or fear," Singhvi said.

A senior minister conceded that the government's overdrive on Wednesday was a "weak symbolism" though the government itself was not weak.  Though there were some reservations about the ministers going to the airport, it was conveyed that it was a decision of the cabinet committee on political affairs that such a move be undertaken, the minister said. - TNN