Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi/Bhopal: While Madhya Pradesh government is making all efforts to make the 'Surya Namaskar' exercise on Swami Vivekanand's birthday on Thursday a world record, Congress’ Digvijay Singh has alleged a match-fixing between BJP and the Jamiat Islami over the issue.
Commenting on the micro-blogging website Twitter, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh wrote, “Match-Fixing between BJP/RSS and Jamiat Islami over Surya Namaskar issue in MP.”
The Congress leader also slammed the right-wing party for trying to take political advantage by evoking religious sentiments over ‘Surya Namaskar’ which is a yogic exercise.
“Surya Namaskar is a Yogic Exercise unconnected with Religion,” he tweeted.
Besides Congress, Muslims clerics have also opposed the move by issuing a fatwa against it, which was also ratified by the Shahar Qazi, Sayyed Mushtaq Ali Nadvi.
Leaders of the minority community have termed the move as un-Islamic and equated it with idol-worship, which is prohibited in Islam.
The state’s school education department has made elaborate arrangements to ensure maximum participation in the Surya Namaskar exercise today so that a world record can be created by registering the feat in the Guinness Book of records.
Directives were issued to all the government and government-aided schools to ensure maximum participation in the exercise so that it can become a world record.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan earlier clarified that the participation in the exercise is not compulsory.
State School Education Minister, Archana Chitnis told reporters, "Surya Namaskar is a Yogic exercise aimed at improving one's health and those not interested in taking part in it have an option to stay away from it. Sun is neither saffron nor green."
However, Muslim leaders have termed the move as an attempt to saffronise the education system.
First Published: Thursday, January 12, 2012, 10:56