Ministers to grace Yoga Day events

If Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead the International Day of Yoga event at Rajpath on early Sunday morning, his ministerial colleagues and BJP leaders will fan out in different parts of the country to ensure the fitness programme is a success.  

Union ministers Nitin Gadkari will be in Nagpur along with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis while Venkaiah Naidu will be in Chennai, Ramvilas Paswan in Patna, Radhamohan Singh in Motihari of Bihar, Dharmendra Pradhan in Bhuvaneshwar, J P Nadda in Hyderabad and Smriti Irani in Shimla.

BJP president Amit Shah will also participate at a function in Patna, while party patriarch L K Advani will also show up in Palampur, which is Lok Sabha member Shanta Kumar's hometown in Himachal Pradesh.

On the eve of the International Yoga Day, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh congratulated Pakistan national Shamshad Haidar for teaching Yoga to 10,000 people in Islamabad in his bid to get over ‘misgivings’ on the fitness programme.
 At a function, Rajnath Singh said, “I congratulate Shamshad Haidar of Pakistan who taught Yoga to 10,000 people in Islamabad”.

Terming Yoga as country’s “biggest gift to the world”, Singh also stated that, “Yoga does not separate one religion from another religion. But, it unites one religion with another religion”. 

His reaction came since a section of Muslim organistions have decided to boycott the event linking it with Hindu religion.  

A Muslim cleric agreed that Yoga stood for “brotherhood” and better health and opposition to it was by ill-informed people.  

“Opposition to Yoga is only by some politicians or by people who are ill informed. Yoga stands for brotherhood,” Muslim Cleric Mufti Shamoon Qasmi said. Qasmi said he will be at Rajpath to do Yoga himself.