 "Govt, BJP milk PM's Saudi visit to reach out to Muslims in Assam, Bengal and Kerala")
Minority Affairs Minister Najma Heptulla rapped “narrow minded” criticism of the two-day visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Saudi Arabia on April 2 and 3.
Heptulla also said the PM’s visit to Riyadh and his attending the World Sufi Forum here on March 17 had sent a "positive message” in Assam, which concluded a two-phase assembly poll on Monday. Muslims are a third of its population.
Heptulla also said relations with other Muslim countries like the Maldives, Iran and Sudan had improved. This was part of another effort in recent days by both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the government to project the Riyadh visit as path-breaking. Heptulla claimed the PM had brought Saudi Arabia on board the fight against terrorism. She stressed how Modi was conferred with the highest civilian honour there by King Salman, custodian of the two holiest shrines of Islam.
She didn’t identify which opposition parties had been critical of the PM’s visit but said politicians should look beyond their respective party lines. “They should have this bare minimum grace to recognise that the visit was in the national interest and also sought to improve the lot of the millions of Indian workers in that country.”
BJP president Amit Shah and other party leaders have repeatedly referred to the PM’s Riyadh visit in their election speeches in Assam, and in other poll-bound states with a substantial Muslim population like Bengal and Kerala. While 34 per cent of Assam’s population is Muslim, it's nearly 25 per cent in Kerala, which polls on May 16; a third of Bengal’s electorate is Muslim.
Elections there are being held over six phases, the first of which was on April 4 and the last will be on May 16.
During his visit to Riyadh, the PM had gifted the Saudi King a copy of a mosque in Kerala, said to have been founded in the seventh century.
The World Sufi Forum was critical of the ultra-conservative Wahhabism that is known to be supported by Saudi Arabia. Sufi groups in India have been critical of madrasas in India that get funding from West Asia.
Heptulla also said the PM’s visit to Riyadh and his attending the World Sufi Forum here on March 17 had sent a "positive message” in Assam, which concluded a two-phase assembly poll on Monday. Muslims are a third of its population.
Heptulla also said relations with other Muslim countries like the Maldives, Iran and Sudan had improved. This was part of another effort in recent days by both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the government to project the Riyadh visit as path-breaking. Heptulla claimed the PM had brought Saudi Arabia on board the fight against terrorism. She stressed how Modi was conferred with the highest civilian honour there by King Salman, custodian of the two holiest shrines of Islam.
She didn’t identify which opposition parties had been critical of the PM’s visit but said politicians should look beyond their respective party lines. “They should have this bare minimum grace to recognise that the visit was in the national interest and also sought to improve the lot of the millions of Indian workers in that country.”
BJP president Amit Shah and other party leaders have repeatedly referred to the PM’s Riyadh visit in their election speeches in Assam, and in other poll-bound states with a substantial Muslim population like Bengal and Kerala. While 34 per cent of Assam’s population is Muslim, it's nearly 25 per cent in Kerala, which polls on May 16; a third of Bengal’s electorate is Muslim.
Elections there are being held over six phases, the first of which was on April 4 and the last will be on May 16.
During his visit to Riyadh, the PM had gifted the Saudi King a copy of a mosque in Kerala, said to have been founded in the seventh century.
The World Sufi Forum was critical of the ultra-conservative Wahhabism that is known to be supported by Saudi Arabia. Sufi groups in India have been critical of madrasas in India that get funding from West Asia.