Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat (pictured above) has criticised madrassas in the state for refusing to put up portraits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in their premises, PTI reported.

“Installing the prime minister’s portrait in all government institutions and those being run on government grants has been an established practice,” Rawat said on Saturday, asking the madrassas to “give up their conservatism on the issue”. The chief minister urged the educational institutes to look at the issue “from an Indian point of view”.

The Uttarakhand Madrassa Education Board’s decision has nothing to do with the prime minister, the organisation’s deputy director Akhlaq Ahmad said. The madrassas have not put up Modi’s portraits as Islam prohibits installation of pictures of living beings inside mosques and education institutes, he told PTI.

The Uttarakhand Madrassa Education Board in August 2017 had refused to comply with a government directive to educational institutions to put up Modi’s portrait, the Hindustan Times reported. Such orders, it had then said, were applicable to only government schools and institutes that receive government aid. Of the 297 madarssas in the state, only the institute at Rehmaniya Road in Roorkee receives assistance from the government.