Rahul Gandhi doesn't possess Anna Hazare's 'political height': Uma Bharti

Patna, July 10(ANI): Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Uma Bharti on Sunday said that Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi does not possess the same political height as veteran social activist Anna Hazare.

Addressing the media in Patna, Bharti said: "The height which Anna Hazare has I don't believe that Rahul Gandhi has the same (political) height. He has got the same kind of media attention, but media attention does not give height also."

She further lashed out at the Central government over the recent crackdown on yoga guru Baba Ramdev's campaign against corruption and black money.

"Many good people have associated themselves with the movement, like Anna Hazare who is as pure as water of River Ganges and Baba Ramdev. But the way his (Ramdev) campaign was crushed even during the days of emergency things did not happen like this," Bharti said.

"I have led scary and violent campaigns like that in Ayodhya and Hooghly, but not even a slight baton charge was ordered until the crowd dispersed. If you order baton charge and launch tear gas shells on a crowd of over 100,000 people then many people can die in the stampede itself," she added.

Around 600 police officials had broken up the mass hunger strike led by Ramdev in New Delhi during pre-dawn hours on June 5 detaining the yoga guru and putting him on a plane to Dehradun.

The BJP leader also lamented over the fact that the Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had justified the crackdown, which according to her was a slap on Indian democracy.

"I think that the justifying of crackdown by the Prime Minister is an insult to the entire democracy, his statement is shameful for the democratic system when he said that there was no other option available. Had they even announced on the public address system and asked for his arrest he would have surrendered and the media is a witness to it," she said.

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh had said that he had no alternative, but to send police to forcibly end the peaceful anti-graft protest by Ramdev and thousands of his followers. (ANI)