By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to visit his Loksabha constituency Varanasi on September 22, and following the same Yogi Adityanath led administration has passed a controversial order.
On September 15, the district minority welfare officer at Varanasi issued a letter to all Madrassas of the city to bring Muslim population for a ‘Samvaad’ programme.
PM Modi was scheduled to talk to Muslim women in the same Samvaad programme on Friday. As per the issued letter, a seating arrangement of 700 people was done for the same ‘Samvaad’ programme.
In the order issued, district minority welfare officer Vijay Pratap Yadav wrote and signed, “….you are being given the responsibility of bringing the minority women at the programme site,” which was addressed to managers and principles of all aided and non-aided Madarssas of the city.
It ordered each Madrassa teacher to bring 25 women with them. The order becomes controversial as it also dictated the Madrassa teachers to bring people from their outside of Madrassa community as well.
The order immediately sparked the tension among the teachers. It was called off after seeing the citywide protest of Madrassas teachers and association members.
Deewan Sahab Zama, the general secretary at the Teachers’ Association Madaris Arabia, said that the madrassas had been assigned a task that should have been given to BJP workers.
“We are not workers of BJP or Muslim Rashtriya Manch of RSS,” said Zama. The association had already called to withdraw the order.
A meeting with Madrassas representatives was put on Monday to discuss the arrangement for the aforesaid programme, but the meeting was eventually called off on Sunday.
Senior officials at the district administration have claimed that auditorium may get packed on its own, but they did not say anything whether the Modi’s interaction with Muslim women will be held or not.