By TCN Special Correspondent,
Ahmedabad: After Muslims voted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates in the recent district panchayat and local bodies elections in Gujarat, members of Dawoodi Bohra Muslim community on Tuesday visited Chief Minister Narendra Modi to wish him on the occasion of the New Hindu Vikram Samvat year.
The delegation comprising 170 people including 25 women in their traditional dresses had representatives of the Bohra community who had come from all over the state.
Dawoodi Bohras greeting Narendra Modi
Prominent among those greeting Modi included Bohra spiritual leader Dr. Syedna Burhanuddin’s special representative Sheikh Aun Ali from Burhanpur in Madhya Pradesh.
When contacted, Ali said that though Syedna was currently on a foreign trip, he had asked him to call on Modi personally and extend him the new year greetings after Diwali. Ali said that Syedna had wished Modi for the development and prosperity of Gujarat.
Stating that largest population of Dawoodi Bohras lived in Gujarat and scattered in rural and urban centres of the state and mainly engaged in business and trade, he said that a number of developmental works were required to be undertaken by Syedna for the benefit of the community.
“And Narendra Modi has extended his full cooperation to the community in developmental work of the community’’, he claimed, adding that it was because of this reason that Syedna had sent him to the chief minister to greet him on the occasion of the beginning of the new Samvat year.
“We are totally apolitical and Syedna has given the message of communal harmony and peace to the people of Gujarat through the chief minister’’, said Ali.
He said that when Syedna had visited the state two years ago, Modi had spared time and visited the spiritual leader.
Two years ago, Modi had appointed Sajjad Hira, a Dawoodi Bohra, as president of the state BJP (Minority Morhcha). Hira was also among those who greeted Modi with Ali.
Narendra Modi with Syedna Burhanuddin in 2008. [Photo by http://akhbar.mumineen.org]
State’s director general of police (DGP) S S Khandwawala is also a Dawoodi Bohra.
Bohras are spread all over the state including interior villages and are engaged in trade. They were also badly affected in 2002 statewide anti-Muslim riots, with their shops and houses having been looted and set afire.
However, Syedna managed to send them all back to their original places by extending monetary assistance and constructing new houses for them.