The Indian Medical Association (IMA) on Wednesday, 26 May wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding sedition charges to be levelled against Baba Ramdev for his comments against allopathic treatments of COVID-19 and said that his claims were “deliberate efforts to stall the efforts of vaccination”.
In a letter signed by IMA National President Dr JA Jayalal, former President Dr Rajan Sharma, Secretary-General Dr Jayesh Lele and Finance Secretary Dr Anil Goyal, the IMA said that Baba Ramdev had vested interests behind such remarks to promote his company’s products.
“At this juncture, painfully we bring to your kind notice, the video claiming 10,000 doctors have died despite taking both doses of vaccines and (that) lakhs of people have died due to allopathic medicine, are circulating virally in the social media, as said by Mr Ramdev, owner of Patanjali products (sic),” the IMA statement read.
“If someone is claiming that allopathic medicine has killed people, it is an attempt to challenge the Ministry that has issued the protocol for treatment to us,” it said.
The IMA further said that Ramdev’s claims were “deliberately made to stall the efforts of vaccination to reach our masses and they need to be curtailed immediately”.
Urging PM Modi to take strict action, the IMA said that Ramdev had challenged the Ministry's protocols for “vested interest in their company products”.
“This, in our opinion, is a clear case of sedition and such persons should be booked immediately without any delay under the charges of sedition,” the IMA said.
Hinting at ‘Coronil’, the IMA said that it acknowledges all forms of medicine, including Ayurveda, but opposed certain drugs promoted as “curative medicine” without the approval of the Ministry.
IMA Wages War Against Ramdev
The letter by IMA to PM Modi came after the medical professionals’ body on Wednesday sent a defamation notice to Baba Ramdev and demanded an apology within 15 days or compensation of Rs 1,000 crore for failing to do so.
In several videos that have surfaced over the past few days, Baba Ramdev can be heard questioning allopathic treatments for COVID-19 and making false claims of doctors dying of the infection despite taking both doses of the vaccines.
The IMA had earlier raised the issue with Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, following which, the latter had written to Ramdev expressing disappointment.
While Ramdev did “withdraw” his statements against allopathy, he shot a letter to the IMA asking 25 questions, seeking cures for several diseases, including diabetes, hypertension, and blockage in the heart. He also sought cures for “humanising rude and violent people” and “sorting out differences between practitioners of Ayurveda and allopathy”.
Many on social media, too, commented on the controversy and demanded Ramdev be booked and arrested for spreading falsehoods about the pandemic.
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