UP Congress cancels iftar programme

Lucknow, June 27 (IANS) The Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee (UPCC) would not be holding a ‘roza iftar’ programme this year, an official said on Monday.

This will be for the first time that the high-profile event has been called off.

Though no official reason has been attributed to the cancellation, insiders said the decision followed a similar one at the national level.

Newly appointed party-in-charge Ghulam Nabi Azad was to attend the programme on July 1.

Opinion is divided among Congressmen on the decision and a large section of the state unit feels that this would send a wrong signal with the minorities, who have so far been more or less with the party, said a state Congress leader.

“At a time when (advisor to Chief Minister of Bihar) Prashant Kishor led strategy team is openly talking of putting up a Brahmin face in the state assembly polls next year, this cancellation could only compound the fears in the mind of minorities that we were going soft now,” a party leader told IANS.

A senior party leader however, trashed such apprehensions and said that the money to be spend on the programme would now be routed to poor Muslim children and spent on them during the holy month of Ramadan.