The Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in Delhi witnessed one of the most unlikely things on Sunday night as Baba Ramdev displayed his football skills for a cause. According to reports, the yoga guru took to the football field in order to promote two of Narendra Modi’s projects – The Swachh Bharat Mission (an initiative to cleanse India of unruly garbage mess) and the Beti Bachao, Beti padhao (an initiative to save and educate the girl child) campaign.
Ramdev performed his cameo in his typical saffron dhoti and boots of the same colour.
The charity football match was played between the country’s parliamentarians and some prominent Bollywood stars. The All stars football team captained by Abhishek Bachchan had others stars like Ranbir Kapoor, Siddharth Malhotra and Dino Morea.
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The parliamentarians played under the captaincy of Babul Supriyo, minister of state for heavy industries. Prasun Banerjee, an ex-Indian national team player also took part for the parliamentarians. The team of the parliamentarians also included BJP MP’s Manoj Tewari, Parvesh Verma, Kamlesh Paswan, Satish Gautam, Bhola Singh and Mohan Naidu of the Telegu Desam party.
Baba Ramdev seemed very enthusiastic about the game while he ran all over the field trying to get a touch of the ball. He finally did get a touch of the ball from one of the corner posts. His footballing skills might not match that of a footballer but his enthusiasm certainly did.
The event was organised by Adhunik, a private art gallery and the amount earned from the match tickets were donated to the two campaigns. The refreshments to the players were provided by Ramdev’s company, Patanjali Ayurved. However, Ramdev did not provide any financial donation to the Indian Government’s campaigns.
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After the event, Ramdev was caught for a quick conversation where he spoke to the TV reporters about Indian football and his reasons to support these causes. He said in his interview with ABP Live that football is a game which demands strength and to keep up to that level one needs to practice yoga, run sprints and play football regularly. He also said that his objective was to motivate people to play football which he did in his own style.
Baba Ramdev’s message to today’s youth was to get themselves involved in the game of football as the under-17 football world cup is scheduled to take place in the country. The yoga guru urged his fans to take more part in the game and promote the game of football in India.
Ramdev’s cameo would inspire millions of people who do not take interest in the game of football.
