Uttarakhand Govt. appeals to Ramdev to call off his fast

Dehradun, June 11 (ANI): Uttarakhand Government on Saturday made a fresh appeal to yoga guru Baba Ramdev, who is refusing to give up his fast amid concerns raised by his followers.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhrial Nishank once again appealed to the yoga guru, whose fast-unto-death protest has entered the eighth day today, to end his fast.

Veteran Congress leader Narayan Dutt Tiwari visited the yoga guru at the Jolly Grant Hospital here on Friday and urged him to give up his fast-unto-death.

"I had a word with him. He is healthy and I told considering his health, he should take further decision of giving up the fast," he said.

Tiwari further said that the fight against corruption and black money should be carried out in a constitutional way and not by holding such protest fasts.

Spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravishankar also visited the yoga guru in hospital on Friday, and asked him to start eating solids from Saturday.

The fasting yoga guru was shifted on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance in his Patanjali Yogpeeth and taken out of Haridwar on Friday. Doctors attending to him yesterday said his liver had been affected and his blood pressure was worryingly low because of his hunger strike.

Ramdev was given glucose on Friday, but he has refused to end his hunger strike.

"Swamiji was taken to the Intensive Care Unit of the Jolly Grant Hospital due to low pulse rate and dehydration on the Chief Medical Officer's advice," Baba Ramdev's spokesperson S.K. Tijarawala said in a statement on Friday.

"We appeal for peace and prayers. He is determined to continue the fast," he added.

Doctors attending to Baba Ramdev at his Patanjali Yogpeeth had earlier advised that the yoga guru should be immediately hospitalized and treated in Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

The yoga guru has been on a hunger strike against corruption along with 65,000 followers when the Delhi Police on the Central government's orders dismantled the elaborate camp late on the night of June 4 that had been set up at New Delhi's Ramlila Maidan. (ANI)