GANDHINAGAR: Muslims on Thursday joined in large numbers the mass recitation of the Vande Mataram in the BJP-ruled Gujarat.

Though the State Government had issued a circular earlier making recitation compulsory for its employees and the staff and students of aided schools and colleges, it had not issued any diktat to the minority institutions and other self-financed educational institutions.

But with the exception of a few, many of the minority institutions in the State voluntarily organised group singing both by the students and staff members. Most Muslim government employees at various levels attended the official functions for its recitation, despite objections by a section of the minority leadership.

With both the ruling BJP, including other wings of the Sangh Parivar, and the opposition Congress supporting the mass programme, there was no political controversy in the State over the issue.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi led the mass recitation at the official ceremony organised at the Secretariat complex where, besides the government employees, all the ministers and a senior Congress leader and former minister, Babubhai Shah, were present.

The BJP state unit president, Vajubhai Vala, led the partymen in the recitation at a ceremony at the State headquarters in Ahmedabad, while his Congress counterpart Bharatsinh Solanki and the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Arjun Modhvadia attended the celebrations at the Rajiv Gandhi Congress Bhavan.

Similar programmes were also organised at various district and taluka headquarters both by the government and the political parties. While in most other places, the BJP and the Congress held separate functions, in Bhuj, the district headquarters of Kutch, the members of the two parties jointly held the ceremony.

The students and staff members of all the 11 minority schools run by the Muslim Education Federation participated in the mass recitation of the national song which was also sung by the students of the Gayatri Vidyalaya at Shah Alam in Ahmedabad — run by a Hindu trust but having more than 99 per cent of its students from the Muslim community.

A minority institution in Vapi did not organise mass singing but its management claimed that the song was played over the speaker system in the classes and recited by the students, while the Darul Uloom madrassa in Bhavnagar held a mass recitation attended by its students and teachers.

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