No politics in meeting Sri Sri, says UP CM

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday said no political angle should be imputed in his meeting with Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who is trying for a solution to the Ayodhya dispute through mediation.

“No politics should be seen behind the meeting,” he said at a press conference here. Adityanath said he shares years-old ties with the spiritual guru and whenever he came to Lucknow, he visited him. “No political angle should be seen in it,” he said.

In the past one year, Ravi Shankar has interacted with more than 500 leaders in Ayodhya, Bangalore, Lucknow, Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai personally or through video conferencing. Recently, he met expelled AIAIMPLB member Salman Nadvi here and has plans for a meeting with Muslim scholars and Ulemas in Lucknow on March 28.

After meeting Nadvi last week, he had said, “Our efforts are on…towards success and the response from all sides is very good. We will continue (our) efforts. We are talking of maintaining love and harmony between two communities and for a grand Ram temple.”

The Art of Living founder said the effort was to bring in a consensus on the issue. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board last month expelled cleric Syed Salman Hussain Nadvi, who had expressed the view that shifting a mosque was permissible under Sharia law.

During the general body meeting of the AIMPLB in Hyderabad, many of the 500 participants had demanded that Nadvi be removed from the board. The board’s spokesman had said Nadvi’s statement was not acceptable and he made it in his personal capacity.