Himachal govt takes possession of Ramdev Trust land

Shimla : The Himachal Pradesh government on Friday took possession of the land of Baba Ramdev’s Trust in Solan district’s Sadhupul , paving the way for a confrontation with the yoga guru .

A team led by the Solan district police chief reached the spot at 3 pm and took over the 28 acre land patch and immediately posted police guards . There was no resistance offered by the trust staff .

An ayurvedic hospital , yoga centre and a food park is being at the spot .Sadhupul is located some 55 km from the state capital Shimla on way to the scenic resort town of Chail

A notice was also served to the Yogpeeth Trust explaining the lease has been cancelled by the state government a couple of days ago .

Baba Ramdev is scheduled to arrive on 27 February at Sadhupul to open the first phase of the food park project.

The previous BJP government in 2010 had allotted the land to the trust for a token lease of Rs 1 per year for 99 years .The market value of this land is Rs 35.4 crore .

State chief secretary S Roy said , “Baba Ramdev is welcome to visit the state but he will not be allowed to carry out any activity at the site which is under the state government’s possession now”.

“The state government will appeal to him (Ramdev) to cancel his proposed 27 February inauguration programme. We hope that there will be no law and order issue,” Roy said .

The move to hand over the land to Ramdev was strongly opposed by the opposition Congress in 2010 .

The now ruling Congress is also opposed to the undue favour as the deal has been signed in the name of Acharya Balkrishan who is being probed for being a Nepalese national , state revenue minister Kaul Singh said.

The matter was discussed at length in the cabinet meeting earlier this week. It reportedly described the land lease to Ramdev’s Trust as “illegal” .

Congress leader Amarinder Singh from neighbouring Punjab had also criticised the handing over of the land to Patanjali Yogpeeth saying this was in violation of the rules.

Once owned by the erstwhile royal family of Patiala , Amarinder’s family had handed over the land to the government to build a children’s home in 1956 .