Vande Mataram row: India not run by Shariat, says Naqvi

NEW DELHI: Faced with criticism from Darul Uloom over his remarks that those who oppose Vande Mataram should leave India, senior BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi on Saturday rejected it as an expression of separatist mindset.

"In my opinion, the clerics who regard Vande Mataram and its advocates as anti-Muslim are people of anti-national mindest," he said.

The Islamic seminary has flayed Naqvi for his remarks against Muslim clerics and advised Muslim parents not to send their children to schools enforcing the Vande Mataram directive on September 7.

"The Indian administration is governed not by Shariat but by a secular Constitution," Naqvi said in a statement here.

"Fatwas by clerics of separatist mindset cannot weaken patriotism of crores of Muslims like me," the BJP leader said.

Naqvi triggered a row with Muslim clerics opposed to compulsory singing of the national song on September 7 when he remarked that such people should rather leave India.