Baba Ramdev is a mental case: Lalu Prasad

After Anna Hazare and his team, it is now the turn of yoga guru Ramdev to kick up a controversy by attacking MPs calling them "dacoits and murderers".

Addressing the media while launching his month-long yatra in Chhattisgarh's Durg on Tuesday, Ramdev had said, "They are those people who don't care, don't love the farmers, the labourers or the people of this country.

"They are friends and slaves of money. They are illiterate, dacoits and murderers. They are devils in the form of humans, who we have elected to those posts. They are not worth," he added.

Ramdev's utterances have upset parliamentarians cutting across party lines.

Questioning Ramdev's credentials Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Lalu Prasad Yadav, said, "What is he? Is he a sadhu? All that he knows is how to inhale and exhale. Let him do his job and sell what he calls medicines for diabetics."

"He is a mental case and frustrated," he added.

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Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader Yashwant Sinha said the insult of Parliament and lawmakers and indeed that of Constitution has become a normal norm now. "And who insults the more is a bigger hero now."

"This is absolutely wrong. Nobody has the authority, no matter how big the individual is, it insults the democratic institutions," he said.

Congress leader Satyavrat Chaturvedi also chided Ramdev for his disrespectful remarks. "The members of Parliament are elected representatives of the people and hence they need to be respected. Such comments are totally uncalled for," he said.

BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain too said that MPs deserve to be respected and no one should speak disparagingly about them.

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The Samajwadi Party came down heavily on Ramdev and asked him to mind his own business. "Baba Ramdev calls himself a saint but a saint doesn't talk like him. I pray to God to give him a saint like mind," said Samajwadi Party MP Mohan Singh.

BJP MP Kirti Azad said, "It has come to such a situation that in this country, nowadays anybody can speak anything and get away with it.

"No one seems to be in any control. However, I am surprised that Ramdev made such remarks. I can be termed as criminal too as I had violated Section 144 of CrPC while protesting against power cuts. But I did not expect such remarks from him," he said.

Ramdev began the third phase of his nationwide tour on Tuesday from Raipur, Chhattisgarh, to fight corruption in public life and unearth unaccounted money stashed to off shore banks.

He had earlier backed Team Anna member and Right to Information activist Arvind Kejriwal when the latter had called MPs "rapists, murderers and looters".

"There can be objection to the language or words used by Kejriwal but his contention is absolutely right," Ramdev had said. "When we can elect MPs then why can't we have a right to speak against them?"

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