Yoga guru Ramdev has stirred another controversy with his claim that there was a campaign to discredit Ayurveda and that it provides some sort of protection against Covid-19, the Hindustan Times reported on Monday.

The yoga guru told the newspaper that he has not gotten vaccinated yet. “For decades, I have been practicing yoga-Ayurveda doses so I didn’t feel the need to get vaccinated,” he said. “Over 100 crore people of India as well as in foreign countries are in reach of these ancient therapies. In the coming time, Ayurveda will be globally accepted. A section of society is deliberately ignoring or deeming it inferior in comparison to allopathy.”

His comments came amid concerted efforts from all quarters to eliminate vaccine hesitancy. Medical experts from across the world have said inoculation is the best option to prevent Covid-19.

In recent weeks, Ramdev has been at the centre of a row with experts of allopathic medicine as videos of the yoga guru propagated misinformation about the coronavirus and the use of modern medicine.

In yet another video that is being widely circulated, Ramdev has claimed that 1,000 doctors died even after getting two doses of the vaccine. Scroll.in could not independently verify the authenticity of the video. Some reports quoted Ramdev as claiming that 10,000 doctors died even after being fully inoculated. The Indian Medical Association had recently said that hundreds of doctors in India have died in the second wave of the pandemic, but that only 3% of them has been vaccinated against the virus.

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  2. Book Ramdev for sedition, IMA tells Modi

On May 27, the Indian Medical Association filed a police complaint against Ramdev, seeking a first information report against him for spreading “false and baseless” information about the treatment of Covid-19 patients using approved methods and drugs.

The medical association demanded that an FIR be filed against Ramdev under the Epidemic Diseases Act, the Disaster Management Act, and other provisions of the Indian Penal Code.

Earlier, the Indian Medical Association’s Uttarakhand unit had sent a defamation notice to Ramdev for calling allopathic medicine a “stupid science”. He had also claimed that lakhs of coronavirus patients died because of allopathic medicines rather than a shortage of oxygen.

Though Ramdev’s remarks have triggered massive outrage, the yoga guru has shown little remorse. Patanjali Yogpeeth General Secretary Balkrishna has said the company will give legally a “befitting reply” to the defamation notice.

On May 26, the medical association, which represents 3.5 lakh doctors, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding that Ramdev be charged immediately for sedition for a misinformation campaign on coronavirus vaccination and for challenging government protocols for treatment of the disease.