Ahmedabad: BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi had a secret meeting with Muslim maulanas including those from the Deobandi sect in Gandhinagar in the last week of Ramzan, during which the Gujarat strongman clarified that Ayodhya was not on the agenda for 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
Sources close to the meeting said, the Muslim maulanas who met Modi during the one and half hour meeting also included an important Muslim scholar and member of All India Muslim Personal Law Board.
During the meeting, Modi said, more than 50 per cent voters today were born after 1989 --when the Ayodhya movement was just taking shape and these young voters have hardly any connect with the temple dispute.
A Muslim leader who was present at the meeting quoted Modi as saying that if former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in his six-year-term could not solve the Ayodhya issue, then why are the Muslims worried now.
Modi also quoted the Allahabad High Court judgement on Babri dispute and said the issue was now in the Supreme Court.
According to sources in Gandhinagar, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi met a range of Muslim leaders including the Deobandis in the last week of Ramazan.
In an off-the-record conversation, a Muslim community leader from Ahmedabad said that an important Islamic scholar and a member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board had a 90-minute discussion with Modi during Ramzan.
Modi also clarified his remark about comparing Muslims with a puppy in his interview to a Reuters journalist.
Modi was asked if he had any regrets over the 2002 Gujarat riots, to which he had said, "Even If I am in the back seat of a car and a puppy (kutte ka bachcha) comes under the wheels, isn't it painful? It is. Whether I am a chief minister or not, I am a human being -- I will be sad if something bad happens anywhere.”
Modi told the Muslim group that he wanted to say ‘chinti' (ant) but the interviewers may not have understood the Hindi word, so he used “puppy”. Sources said, Modi has been meeting Muslim leaders and interacting with them privately. Even the young Muslim generation is now curious about Modi and his views.
