Lucknow, May 02: A senior member of the Jama Masjid Advisory Council Mohammad Aslam Ansari today resigned from the council in protest against the Delhi Jama Masjid Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari`s appeal to Muslims to support the BJP in the ongoing parliamentary elections. Questioning Bukhari`s appeal, Ansari asked the Imam as to “who he was to issue such an appeal to Muslims to vote for a party whose hands were stained with their blood."

"I have resigned from the council to register my protest," he said.

Muslims were pondering over whether they should offer prayers led by the imam after his "controversial and condemnable statement which smacked of a shoddy deal", he said in a statement here.

"Would he have made such an appeal if he had been one of the victims of the Gujarat carnage," Ansari, who was also a former member of the State Haj Committee, asked.

He said the appeal had "enlivened" the wounds sustained during the three-month long Gujarat carnage.

Bureau Report