While the Rashtriya Muslim Manch (RMM), affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has made all arrangements to host a grand and international Iftar party, the Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh have decided to scrap off their legendary Iftar programme.
The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) has announced that they will not be holding a ‘roza iftar’ programme this year.
This is the first time that the high-profile event has been called off.
Though no official reason has been attributed to the cancellation, according to reports, the decision followed a similar one at the national level.
Newly appointed party-in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad was to attend the programme on July 1.
However, the Congress leaders are divided on the decision. A large section of the state unit feels that this would send a wrong signal to the minorities.
“At a time when (advisor to Chief Minister of Bihar) Prashant Kishor led strategy team is openly talking of putting up a Brahmin face in the state assembly polls next year, this cancellation could only compound the fears in the mind of minorities that we were going soft now,” a party leader told IANS.
A senior party leader however, trashed such apprehensions and said that the money to be spent on the programme would now be routed to poor Muslim children and spent on them during the holy month of Ramadan.