BJP MP from Aligarh Satish Gautam has written a letter to AMU Vice Chancellor of Tariq Mansoor asking for an explanation for displaying the photo of the founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the institution.

In a letter, Gautam has asked that what the compulsion was of putting his picture in the campus. He said that while he doesn’t know where the said picture is displayed but the question is why it is there altogether. He said, after India’s Partition, there is no justification for display of the picture of Pakistan’s creator.

“If they really want to put some pictures, they should display photo of great men like Mahendra Pratap Singh, who had donated land for this institution,” he said.

Reacting to Gutam’s letter, former president of AMUSU Faizul Hassan said that there is no programme or chapter on Jinnah that is taught in the university. He said Jinnah’s picture was placed in the institute in 1938, much before Partition.

He, however, said that if the government passes any order for its removal, an appropriate decision will be taken then. In the same breath, he questioned as to why Jinnah's picture has not been removed from Parliament.

AMU Student Union president Mashkoor Ahmad Usmani said, “He was the hero of undivided India”. He said Jinnah had been given lifetime membership of the body before 1947 and that is why his picture has been displayed and will always remain there. Usmani said that tomorrow the BJP might question the display of BR Ambedkar picture as they are now targeting the SCs.

He said, instead of writing to the VC, Gautam should have written to the students union as the picture is placed in AMU Students’ Union Hall. “We would have given a befitting reply to him,” he said, adding that this too exhibited the divisive mind of the saffron leaders.

Member in charge of AMU’s Public Relation Shafey Kidwai said that students union is an independent body and they had started giving life memberships from 1920 and its recipients include Mahatma Gandhi also. “Jinnah too was given the same membership,” he said, adding that his pictures had been put there.