Representative image of a nun walking past a church.
Credit: iStock Photo
Thiruvananthapuram: BJP's attempts to make inroads into the Christian vote banks of Kerala seems to have suffered yet another setback with the Catholic church strongly reacting to an article by a Sangh Parivar leader accusing the Christian community over conversion in RSS's mouthpiece 'Kesari'.
An editorial in Malayalam daily 'Deepika', the mouthpieces of the Catholic church in Kerala, on Monday strongly condemned the allegations raised in the article by Hindu Aikya Vedi state vice president E S Biju titled "Aagola Mathaparivarthanathinte Nalvazhikal" (The timeline of global religious conversion).
"The Sangh Parivar leader's article exposes the intentions to amend the Constitution by blaming the Christian community. In Kerala, BJP is trying to put one hand around the shoulders of the Christians. Those who are either ignorant or pretending to be ignorant on where the other hand of BJP is can go ahead with their dreams of theocratic state and Manusmriti. The BJP that sees Christians as equal citizens only in Kerala may respond or not respond to these communal campaigns," said the Deepika editorial.
The Deepika editorial also says that the Constitutional validity of the anti-conversion laws being initiated by the BJP targeting the minorities need to be questioned.
It also accuses the Hindu Aikya Vedi leader of trying to spread baseless allegations of conversion against the Christian community even with regard to the recent attack on nuns at Chhattisgarh.
Even as the article mentions about the educational institutions and hospitals run by churches, the Sangh Parivar leader could have enquired with BJP leaders who send their children to these institutions whether they were made to undergo religious conversion.
AICC general secretary K C Venugopal had also strongly flayed the article in RSS mouthpiece. He said that the ulterior motive of the article was to put Christians in a bad light in the name of conversion. He also asked the BJP to clarify its stand on the matter.
The fresh row came up amidst BJP's renewed attempts to make inroads into the Christian vote banks. A social outreach programme organised by the BJP at Kottayam last week was said to be a meeting of Christian leaders and workers of the party to discuss steps to make inroads into the Christian vote banks especially since the local body and Assembly polls are approaching.
On Sunday, central Kerala based regional party, National Progressive Party, which was formed in 2023 by a group of ex-legislators targeting the Christian vote banks, had merged with NDA's coalition partner National People's Party.