Bhopal, Apr 20 (PTI) The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Madhya Pradesh was functioning at the behest of communal elements and that minorities were being targeted.

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Assembly polls are to be held in the state at the end of the year.

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MP CPI(M) secretary Jaswinder Singh said a Muslim staffer has been removed from the managing committee of the Sharda Temple in Maihar in Satna as per an order of the Religious Trust and Endowment Department on the recommendation of state Culture Minister Usha Thakur following complaints from the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

"The man has been working there since the 1980s. The minister, sidestepping the Constitution, has written that the Muslim staffer should be removed from the temple's management committee," he alleged, adding a Muslim youth has been sent to jail on the complaint of a Hindu Jagran Manch leader in Dhar.

On the basis of the youth's Whatsapp status of a chained lion being attacked by dogs, a complaint was lodged with Nalchha police station and he was arrested on charges of spreading hatred among communities and other offences, Singh claimed.

The youth or his kin have no criminal record and the police action suggests it is working at the behest of communal elements seeking to spread hatred, the CPI(M) leader alleged.

He also slammed the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government for issuing an order to carry out a survey of madarsas in the state, a move similar to the one in BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh.

Singh said the Narendra Modi government had stopped giving grants to madarsas since 2014, and all such moves were creating panic among minority communities.

Secular and democratic forces must to unite and fight against the MP government's plan to survey madarsas as it was "anti-minority and against the Constitution", the CPI(M) leader said.

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