Baba Ramdev a mascot of NDA: Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed

DARBHANGA: Senior Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed today slammed the NDA for using Yoga guru Baba Ramdev as a "mascot" to run down the Congress-led UPA government on the black money issue.

"It is obvious that Ramdev has emerged as a mascot of the NDA in its political fight against the UPA," Ahmed told reporters here.

It was also a public knowledge that the NDA and RSS had lent backing to anti-corruption crusaders Baba Ramdev and Anna Hazare, he claimed.

The BJP-led NDA had been using Ramdev as a front to run down the UPA government on the black money issue, but the opposition's hobnobbing with Ramdev was exposed after BJP chief Nitin Gadkari and NDA convener Sharad Yadav attended Ramdev's anti-graft agitation at Ramlila Grounds in New Delhi.

Ahmed, the Congress's West Bengal unit in-charge, dared the BJP to fight openly and directly with the UPA on public issues instead of riding piggyback on the Yoga Guru and said that it was for the people of the country to judge as to which parties have done the needful to bring back the black money from abroad and taken steps on the Lokpal Bill to eradicate corruption.

The BJP remembers black money and Lokpal issues only when in opposition and asked the main opposition party to prove a single step taken by it on the twin issues while ruled the country for six years between 1998 and 2004, the senior Congress leader asked.