A few words of praise for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi have eventually cost Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi his coveted job as vice chancellor of Darul Uloom, Deoband, widely recognised as India's leading Islamic seminary.
Gujarat's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission seeking to bar ousted Vice-Chancellor of Darul Uloom Deoband Maulana Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi from entering the state following his allegedly provocative utterances against Chief Minister Narendra Modi.
Darul Uloom Deoband head Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi on Thursday said he will abide by the decision of a three-member panel probing his pro-Narendra Modi remarks and won't challenge in court the outcome if it is against him.
The Election Commission has given a clean chit to Maulana Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi, former vice-chancellor of Darul Uloom Deoband, over a speech that the Bharatiya Janata Party claimed was 'provocative' and violated the poll code.
His remarks against Narendra Modi nearly cost him his job, but Maulana Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi will for now remain vice chancellor of Asia's largest Islamic seminary,Darul Uloom Deoband in Uttar Pradesh.
Deoband chief Ghulam Mohammed Vastanvi's statement praising Gujarat's progress is een by many as a tacit stamp of approval for Narendra Modi. Yoginder Sikand looks at the implications of Vastanvi's words.
The two-day India visit by Islamic hardliner and Pakistan's Jamiat-ul-Islami chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman is believed to be aimed at reinforcing the anti-Vastanvi forces at the Darul-Uloom Deoband seminary in Uttar Pradesh, where the recently appointed vice chancellor Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi had drawn much flak for praising Narendra Modi's governance in Gujarat.
Reliable sources claim that certain top figures within one (of the three rival) factions of the Deobandi mass organisation Jamiat ul-Ulema-e Hind are the real brains behind the ongoing hate campaign directed against Vastanvi, and that they are using Vastanvi's alleged pro-Modi remarks and certain other accusations now being leveled against him to oust him, says Yogi Sikand
Sahim Salim travels to Deoband in Uttar Pradesh to find answers to some of the questions that have sharply divided the Darul Uloom seminary
Maulana Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi, the new vice-chancellor of Darul Uloom Deoband tells Gyan Varma that he never praised Narendra Modi
"Gujarat registered a sustained agricultural growth of 7 to 9 per cent over the past six years which was far ahead of the country's national average growth of just about 2.5 to 3 per cent."
Caught in a controversy relating to his appreciation of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Deoband based Darul Uloom vice chancellor Maulana Mohammad Ghulam Vastanvi offered to step down.
'Why isn't the BJP ready to give reservations to Muslims despite the high court telling it to do so?' 'A K Antony said the Congress lost the 2014 election because of Muslim appeasement. Antony should have gone to the jails of Maharashtra and found out how many Muslims were arrested during Congress rule. I don't know what kind of appeasement this is.' 'We reposed faith in so-called great secular leaders and they deceived us.'
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