Baba Ramdev: Back in Delhi and bigger than ever

More than a year after Delhi police caught Baba Ramdev wearing a salwar kurta running for his life at the Ranjit Singh flyover, Baba Ramdev is back, with thousands of supporters who swarmed the one kilometer long stretch from Ramlila ground to Ranjit Singh flyover after Ramdev courted arrest. Monday was Ramdev’s day. At 1pm as Ramdev stepped out of the protest venue as scheduled, he was made to board a DTC bus, part of a fleet of 50 buses stationed to take Baba and his supporters away from the protest venue. Sitting atop a moving bus wearing a ninja style black headband, Ramdev sported a victorious smile and continued waving to the crowd. In between, he gave bytes to scribes who managed to join him atop the vehicle. Within moments, there was chaos on the roads around Ramlila ground as a crowd of around 15000 started running after the bus carrying Ramdev shouting ‘_Baba tum sangharsh karo, ham tumhare saath hai_n,". [caption id=“attachment_416463” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Naresh Sharma/Firstpost[/caption] They didn’t allow the buses to leave the spot. Media, Ramdev followers and even Delhi police constables were clueless about where Baba would be shifted. A lot of them wanted assurances that he was fine, as well as  details of his whereabouts before boarding the buses. Photojournalists took positions on streets, in buses and roof tops to capture the event. As the word spread that the buses were heading to outer Delhi’s Bawana area, many supporters said that they would not board the buses because they wanted to court arrest and not go to Bawana. “Dokha hua hai. Bas mein mat chadho,” (this is cheating. Don’t board the bus) was the prevailing sentiment. Others were seen pleading with the bus driver to drop them after some distance. There were also attempts to vandalise the buses. Hundreds of supporters sat on the roads and atop the buses daring cops to arrest them. Baba supporters tried provoking baton- less cops on more than one occasion. It took police more than two hours to convince people to board the buses. All the major roads around Ramlila were blocked for traffic for more than three hours.