Hectic efforts to persuade Ramdev

New Delhi, Jun 2 (PTI) Hectic back-channel efforts
were on till late Thursday night to persuade yoga guru Baba
Ramdev from going ahead with his indefinite hunger strike from
Saturday as the Congress party and the government held
consultations at the highest level to avert a Hazare-like
protest on the streets.
Indications that both the sides were in serious
discussions came when Ramdev called off a press conference
scheduled this evening at Ramlila Maidan where he is to sit on
fast two days later.
The cancellation of the media briefing took place on
the ground that there was "serious dialogue" on with the
government and that he would update the media about the
"conclusive" outcome Friday after the second-round of talks.
Acharya Balkrishnan, a close aide of Ramdev, said even
if the government concedes to all the demands, the
'satyagraha' fast will take place for three days at least.
After reports that civil society was divided on the
Lokpal(Ombudsman) Bill, Anna Hazare Thursday announced that he
will join Ramdev's protest on Sunday but cautioned him that
the government would "play fraud" by making false promises.
The Core Group of the Congress met at Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh's residence where party chief Sonia Gandhi and
senior ministers, including Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram, A
K Antony and senior leader Ahmed Patel.
This was followed by another high-level meeting of
ministers and top officials when a draft of an agreement is
understood to have been firmed up. This would be put on offer
at Friday's meeting with Ramdev.
The party, which had disapproved senior ministers
rushing to the airport here Wednesday for talks with the yoga
guru, left it to the government to deal with the issue in a
proper manner.