Chandigarh: Yoga Guru Ramdev, who is Haryana's brand ambassador for promotion of Yoga and Ayurveda, today claimed that 80 per cent of youths in Punjab have fallen prey to drug menace.
“Eighty per cent youths in Punjab have fallen in the trap of drug menace. Whenever I travel abroad, people keep telling me to do something about this and save Punjab,” Ramdev told a news conference here.
The yoga guru, who was accompanied by his close aide Balkrishna, was speaking to reporters after a meeting with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, seniors ministers in the BJP government, besides top officials of the state government, in connection with promotion of yoga and ayurveda in Haryana.
While speaking about plans to make Haryana “world capital” of yoga and ayurveda, he veered towards Punjab and talked about the drug menace problem in the state, where Shiromani Akali Dal and BJP run a coalition government.
Ramdev then said that he was working closely with Haryana government by having projects which will channelise the energies of youth in positive direction. “..In entire India, Haryana will emerge as model state where Yoga and Vyayam (exercises) on one hand will save the youths from getting into drug menace, on the other I am hopeful that in the field of sports too, Haryana will be No 1,” Ramdev said in the presence of Khattar and Health Minister Anil Vij.
‘Yogshalas' and ‘Vyamshalas' will be opened in huge numbers in Haryana which will save the youths from falling victims to this scourge, he said.
Asked if he had any plan to start a campaign against drug menace in Punjab, Ramdev said by quoting the 80 per cent figure, which he had come to know through the media, the intention was not to let anyone down. He added, “In Punjab too, we want to do good things, entire country is ours.. Vasudeva Kutumbakam (a Sanskrit phrase which means the world is one family)”.
Meanwhile, shortly after Ramdev arrived here in the afternoon for the meeting, Haryana Pradesh Mahila Congress held a protest demonstration against him over his pharmacy's ‘Putrajeevak Beej' medicine.
The Mahila Congress activists, who were carrying black flags in their hands, were stopped by the police close to the party's state unit headquarters in Sector 9 from proceeding towards the venue where Ramdev was holding the meeting, which is about 2 km away.
The Mahila Congress activists raised slogans against Ramdev and said, “while the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre was running flagship programmes like ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao', other people like Ramdev are being allowed to sell Putrajeevak Beej medicine, creating bias against girl child by promising birth of a male child”.
They demanded that Ramdev's pharmacy should stop selling such medicine.
Notably, Ramdev's Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust has sought to clarify the controversy over ‘Putrajeevak Beej' medicine manufactured by the yoga guru-owned Divya Pharmacy, saying the drug was meant for dealing with infertility problem in women and termed as “false and misleading” the notion that it promises a male child.
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