Lucknow: Amid the ongoing survey of Muslim seminaries that began in Uttar Pradesh for the first time on Saturday, Samajwadi Party (SP) national president Akhilesh Yadav made a veiled attack on the government over the issue.
In a tweet in Hindi, Akhilesh said: “If any survey of any religious place is not just, then it hurts sentiments deeply. Justice is the biggest religion”.
Akhilesh’s tweet came around the time when a team from the Uttar Pradesh Board of Madrasa Education and the Lucknow district administration surveyed the Muslim seminary Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama in Lucknow, days after the state government ordered a survey of “unrecognised” seminaries.
The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and a few other opposition parties have already criticised the move, while the government has maintained that the surveys were being conducted to check whether basic facilities were being provided to the seminarians.
Slamming the Uttar Pradesh government, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati had alleged in a series of tweets in Hindi on Friday (the day before the survey began): “The Muslim community is being oppressed and terrorised under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. The game of Muslim teasing is very sad and condemnable.”
“In this sequence, now the BJP government has a sharp eye on madrasas in U.P. In the name of madrasas’ survey, efforts to intervene in private madrasas running on community donations are also unfair. The government should focus on improving the poor condition of government subsidised madrasas and government schools,” she said.
{{/usCountry}}“In this sequence, now the BJP government has a sharp eye on madrasas in U.P. In the name of madrasas’ survey, efforts to intervene in private madrasas running on community donations are also unfair. The government should focus on improving the poor condition of government subsidised madrasas and government schools,” she said.
{{/usCountry}}Addressing media persons in Meerut on Wednesday, RLD’s national general secretary Trilok Tyagi attacked the BJP government and accused the BJP government of indulging in divisive politics and also demanded that a similar survey should be carried out in Shishu Mandir schools run by the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).