By TCN Special Correspondent,
Ahmedabad: The Gujarat government on Thursday re-constituted the Gujarat State Haj Committee by appointing 13 members. Among the members are Congress Rajya Sabha MP Ahmed Patel and Congress MLA Javed Peerzada. Other members are close to BJP.State government sources said that it was for the first time since Narendra Modi took over the reign of the state in 2001 that the State Haj Committee was reconstituted.
The term of the Haj committee is for three years.
The State Haj Committee here should have 16 members, including its chairman. With State Haj Committee’s secretary and Gujarat State Wakf Board chairman being ex-officio members of the Haj committee, the state government needs to appoint one more member. Sources said that the government is yet to decide who will be chairman of the committee.
So far, the committee was single-handed run by retired IAS official S K Saiyed as its chairman.But what has provoked Modi to reconstitute the Haj committee? Political analysts say that it is one of the several strategies recently initiated by Modi to woo the local Muslims and improve his image from a hardliner to a liberal Hindutva leader.
Political watchers say that Modi is doing all this to wipe out the stains of 2002 anti-Muslim riots for which he is generally held responsible by the Muslim masses. And this factor is coming in his way to rise to national politics of BJP because a section of the BJP and NDA alliance partners dependent on Muslim votes do not want Modi to play any role at national level in BJP. But Modi harbouring ambitions to become prime minister in the event of NDA winning the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections is desperate to improve his image and is making every bid to placate Muslims. But he has so far been avoiding to say sorry and apologise for what happened in 2002 with Gujarat Muslims.
In the last few months, Modi attended functions organized by Dawoodi Bohras and even met Syedna Muhammed Burhanuddin. He also invited Muslim investors from Middle East countries in Vibrant Global Gujarat Investors Summit in January this year. But no one attended the meet.In October 2010 zilla panchayat and municipal elections, he fielded around 250 Muslim candidates and 118 of them were reported to have been elected.
But analysts say that half-hearted measures are not going to heal the wounds of Muslims till Modi tenders an open apology. They cite the example of the newly appointed vice chancellor of Darul Uloom, Deoband, Maulana Ghulam Muhammed Vastanvi. Maulana Vastanvi had to face the wrath of the Muslim masses all over the country after his reported pro-Modi comments.
Other members of the reconstituted Haj Committee are: Sufi Sant Mehboobali Bawa from Surat,Yunus Sheikh from Surendranagar, Ilyaskhan Pathan from Rajkot, Nazirkhan Sherjummakhan Talukdar alias Raja Saheb and Rafiq Habib Memon, both from Ahmedabad, Deen Mohammed
Autha from Bhavnagar, Ahmedhusain Miya Haji Sikandaria Sayed from Rajkot, Asgar Ali Adharia from Banaskantha, Mohammed Ali A. Qadri from Patan and Ikramkhan Ibrahim Patel from Bharuch. Salmaben Ismail Ambawala from Dahod is the only female member in the committee.