BJP to debate 'love jihad' at UP meet

Issue on agenda of state-level conference

The Bharatiya Janata Party will deliberate on so-called ‘love jihad’ at the meeting of the party’s Uttar Pradesh state executive committee which began on Saturday in Vrindavan, the land of Lord Krishna, about 500 kilometres from here.

UP BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpai said the party would discuss the issue at the meeting and would also adopt a resolution on it.  “It is very a serious issue and needs to be discussed thoroughly,” he said.

He alleged that members of a particular community had under a well planned conspiracy been luring girls from the majority community.

“They have been emboldened by the appeasement politics by the present dispensation in the state,” Bajpai said.

Some other BJP leaders too voiced ‘concern’ over an ‘attempt to trap’ Hindu girls and said the party would do everything possible to counter the threat posed by ‘love jihad’.

The leaders referred to the recent incidents of ‘forced conversions’ of the girls and their subsequent marriage with Muslims.

“The recent incident of conversion of a girl in Meerut and her gang-rape at a madarsa in Muzaffarnagar after she was married to a cleric, clearly shows that it has become a serious issue,” remarked a senior state BJP leader.

Opposition leaders, however, rubbished the BJP’s remarks and said the saffron party was trying to polarise the state so that it could gain political mileage in the next Assembly elections.

“BJP is trying to foment communal passion in UP by talking of love jihad,” Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati told reporters.

UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav also referred to the term though in a veiled manner. “No one can put a ban on love,” Akhilesh said and referred to the recent alleged gang-rape and murder of a teen in Faizabad.

“Is it not true that the girl was having an affair with the Muslim boy?” he asked, adding that the government could not prevent people from loving each other.