Lucknow: Union home minister Rajnath Singh, along with governor Ram Naik and chief minister Yogi Adityanath, led hundreds of yoga enthusiasts in performing yoga at the Raj Bhavan on the occasion of International Yoga Day on Thursday.

The Raj Bhavan threw open its gates ofr the common people who came to participate in the event.

Mr Singh, who is also the Lok Sabha MP from Lucknow, said that the credit for creating a global awakening about Yoga should go to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“While yoga has been there for ages, it got its rightful place on the global platform due to the efforts of our Prime Minister and now people take it seriously and are reaping its health benefits,” he said.

The home minister also cleared doubts that yoga was meant only for Hindus and pointed out that if this had been the case, Yoga would not have been supported by 177 countries across the world, which included the world body UN and 46 Islamic nations.

Mr Adityanath said that in order to remain disease free, the practice of yoga was very fruitful.

He clarified that a large number of ministers, bureaucrats and police officers were also present at the event and were seen practicing “asanas”.