BJP fires return salvo at Nitish on yoga

Bharatiya Janata Party leader Sushil Modi on Tuesday castigated Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for his snide remarks against Amit Shah and Baba Ramdev vis-a-vis promotion of International Yoga Day on June 21.

He also slammed Kumar for not organising an official function to promote the exercise in Bihar.

“Kumar has needlessly attacked BJP president Amit Shah and yoga guru Baba Ramdev for promoting the International Yoga Day scheduled for June 21... being himself a yoga supporter and practitioner, he should have organised official functions to promote the ancient exercise form,” Sushil said.

The former deputy chief minister complimented yoga guru Ramdev for yeoman service to promote the ancient exercise form as a fitness activity in the country and across the world.

Kumar had on Monday taken a dig at Ramdev for maximising his skills as a yoga expert to brand himself as a business and marketing guru.

Defending Ramdev’s business activities, Sushil said the yoga guru was a self-made man for which he deserved kudos and not brickbats.

Countering Kumar’s charges that the Centre has ignored Bihar by not scheduling an official function in Bihar on the International Yoga Day, Sushil said the exercise regime was not a fiefdom of one party or one government and anybody interested in it or understanding its health benefits could organise a function.

The chief minister should have organised a camp to coincide with the International Yoga Day for policemen and prisoners in view of their stressful life, the BJP leader said.

On Kumar’s charge that the BJP has other motives in promoting Yoga, Sushil said that the CM was ignorant about 177 countries embracing yoga and even the United Nations recognising its virtues by coming forward to celebrate Yoga Day on a global level.

On the BJP promoting yoga in Bihar in a big way, the senior BJP leader said it would organise statewide camps on June 21 to enable people to join in various arts of the exercise form to tone up their mind and body.

BJP national president Amit Shah too would attend one of the camps in the state capital next week, he said and urged other political parties to organise such camps for their leaders and workers.

Sushil Modi said his party would incorporate the ancient fitness regime in school curriculum as an optional activity in Bihar if elected to power in the Assembly polls later this year.

“Yoga will be made an optional activity in the school curriculum in Bihar and one or two periods will be earmarked for the students to perform physical and mental exercises prescribed by the art,” he said.

The BJP leader also criticised Kumar for describing former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi as a betrayer and describing him as Vibhishana, the younger brother of Ravana.

“Going by his own interpretation, if he has called Manjhi a Vibhishana then he must have described himself as Ravana..... in that scenario, the Dalit leader has done the right thing by walking out of the Ravana camp and joined us as we represent Ram Rajya,” he added.