Waqf officer accuses Minister Ajay Vishnoi of seeking sexual favours

Barely had the controversy over Cooperative Minister Gauri Shanker Bisen getting his shoe laces tied by a tribal boy settled down that another senior BJP minister is caught in a row in Madhya Pradesh.

Minorities Affairs' minister Ajay Vishnoi has been accused of seeking sexual favours. Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board officer SMH Zaidi has said that the minister's staff asked him to take his wife along and reach Vishnoi's bungalow. Now Zaidi had approached the High Court in this regard.

Zaidi claims that as he refused to be part of corrupt practices regarding to Waqf property, he was transferred to Naxalites' area. The court had then stayed the transfer. However, government didn't grant him posting and his salary was withheld for two years.

To his complaint, the minister's staffer asked him to bring his wife. Zaidi claims that when he complained to minister in this regard, Vishnoi said that one has to pay for getting things done. Vishnoi's name has cropped up in the past also in cases of corruption.

Clearly, one after the other such controversies are damaging the reputation of the BJP-led government in Madhya Pradesh. Time to worry for Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

MP records huge turnout during Surya Namaskar amid opposition from Muslims, Christians

The Madhya Pradesh government introduced Surya Namaskar in thousands of schools in the state.

The event was held on a large-scale and lakhs of students participated though there was criticism from minorities including Christian and Muslim groups.

The Darul Ifta Bhopal had issued a Fatwa, which termed Surya Namaskar or bowing before sun as un-Islamic and against the tenets of the religion. The Christian groups have also criticised the move and said that it was wrong to hold such events in schools.

But the BJP leaders have played down the controversy. They said that it was voluntary and no one was forced to do it. Congress termed the move as the ongoing Saffron agenda at the behest of RSS that included introduction of Gita chapters in school textbooks and similar other steps.