Earlier this month, Mayawati hit out at the BJP government for its decision to conduct a survey of unrecognised madrasas across Uttar Pradesh. (Express file photo by Vishal Srivastava)A day after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat visited a mosque at the All India Imams Organisation (AIIO) headquarters in New Delhi and met its chief, Imam Umer Ahmed Ilyasi, BSP president Mayawati questioned if it would help change the BJP’s “negative attitude” towards Muslims, madrasas and mosques.
“After RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat visited a mosque/madrasa in Delhi yesterday and met the ulemas and then got himself called the ‘rashtra pita and ‘rashtra rishi’, will there be a change in the negative attitude and behaviour of the BJP and its governments towards the Muslim community and their mosques and madrasas?” Mayawati tweeted in Hindi on Friday.
“The UP government is unable to tolerate the compulsion of offering namaz for a few minutes alone in an open space and is bent upon intervening in (the functioning) of private madrasas also, while ignoring the government madrasas. But there is also a need to think about what meanings are being derived from the silence of the RSS chief on this issue,” she tweeted further.
Earlier this month, Mayawati hit out at the BJP government for its decision to conduct a survey of unrecognised madrasas across Uttar Pradesh. She accused the government of oppressing Muslims and trying to interfere in the functioning of madrasas funded “by qaum ke chande (donations from the community)” with the “unfair” survey.
The AIIO claims to represent half a million imams across three lakh mosques in India. It also claims to be the largest Muslim organisation in the country.
A few days earlier, Bhagwat met eminent people from the Muslim community, including former chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi and former Delhi lieutenant governor Najeeb Jung, at an RSS office in Delhi.