CEO asks for report on Vastanvi’s ‘tyrant’ remarks against CM

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Gujarat has asked for a report on the controversial speech by ousted vice-chancellor of Darul Uloom Deoband, Maulana Ghulam Mohammad Vastanvi, at a Congress function at Mandvi in Surat district on Sunday.

The BJP had lodged a complaint with the Election Commission and demanded that Vastanvi be barred from entering Gujarat for his alleged provocative utterances against Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

"We have asked for a report from Surat district electoral officer. We will take a decision after we receive the report," Additional Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar told The Indian Express.

Vastanvi was removed from the post of vice-chancellor of Darul Uloom Deoband, the second largest Islamic seminary in the world, for praising Modi's development policy in January 2011.

Addressing a rally organised by the minority cell of Congress at Tarkeshwar in Mandvi taluka of Surat district on Sunday, Vastanvi had allegedly called Modi as a "zalim" (tyrant).

"I have never praised Narendra Modi...to praise a tyrant is a crime," he is reported to have said while urging the audience not to vote for Modi in the upcoming Assembly elections.

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