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Madhya Pradesh church castigates Rajnath Singh

Bhopal: The Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh has strongly criticised the recent speech made by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh on “mass illegal conversions” during a senior BJP leader’s 75th birthday.

In a letter written to Mr. Singh on Thursday, copies of which have been sent to all senior BJP leaders, Anand Muttungal, public relations officer and spokesperson for the Catholic Church in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, said: “Since you did not have any attractive slogan to draw the support of Hindus to the next electoral battle, now you have chosen to incite Hindus by raising the slogan of conversion.”

Drawing Mr. Singh’s attention to the speech delivered on October 31 on the occasion of senior BJP leader Kailash Sarang’s birthday in Bhopal, Mr. Muttungal has said that while all those present on the occasion restricted their speeches to praising Mr. Sarang’s qualities and his contribution to the Jan Sangh, the whole atmosphere of the programme was vitiated by a highly controversial speech on “mass illegal conversions”, made by Mr. Singh.

Mr. Muttungal pointed out that in the initial part of his speech Mr. Singh said: “Due to mass illegal conversions, the affairs in the North East are worrisome, 30 percent of the tribal population in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand have changed their religion.”

“If there is some truth in what you say then it is not a worrisome sign for you alone but for the whole country. So it will be in the best interest of our country to ascertain all facts related to illegal conversions. We must take the service of all means possible including the Right to Information Act in this regard. Before deploring conversion, it will be very interesting to find out the reasons why people are changing their religion”, Mr. Muttungal’s letter said.

The priest cautioned that the Constitution of India guarantees freedom of religion and if it was not observed then “it will weaken the foundation of our country”.

Mr. Muttungal also highlighted the violence against minorities after the BJP came to power. “Every now and then churches, prayer centres, individuals, Christian educational institutions etc. are subjected to brutal attacks by anti-social elements,” he rued.- IANS

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