Amit Shah has assured to take steps to release arrested nuns, UDF MPs claim as Kerala BJP makes effort to pacify church leaders

Thiruvananthapuram: A delegation of MPs representing the Congress-led United Democratic Front in Kerala called on Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on Thursday and got a favourable assurance on helping the two Malayali nuns held in Chhattisgarh.

RSP MP N K Premachandran, who led the delegation, told reporters that the Union Home Minister assured that the BJP governments at the Centre and at Chhattisgarh would take necessary steps to obtain bail for the two nuns. The Chhattisgarh government would also seek a review of the session's court order to shift the case to NIA court.

BJP Kerala president Rajeev Chandrasekhar reportedly appraised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah of the setback the party could face in Kerala in its efforts to develop a good rapport with the Christian community, which constituted 18 percent of the state's population as per 2011 census.

Meanwhile, the BJP is trying to pacify the church leaders in Kerala, who openly stated that any diplomacy with BJP would be possible only after addressing the concerns of the Christian community.

BJP Kerala president Rajeev Chandrasekhar is learnt to be planning to meet prominent bishops in Kerala, even as nuns and priests took out protest marches at various parts of the state on Thursday also.

The BJP camps have also unleashed a campaign that the Congress and CPI(M) were only trying to fish in troubled waters. "The political rows being created by the Congress and CPI(M) would only adversely affect the release of the nuns," Chandrasekhar said in a statement..

He also recollected that cases were registered against nuns under anti-conversion laws in Chhattisgarh during the term of Congress. In Kerala also cases were registered against nuns on charges of conversion, he said.

Union minister of state for minority affairs and BJP's Rajya Sabha MP from Kerala George Kurian, who was widely criticised for the silence on the issue, also accused the opposition parties of worsening the issue with vested interest. He said that being a minister he could not make comments on matters pending judicial review. The party would try to convince the Christian community of the issues, he said.

In a bid to appease the agitated church leaders, he also said that mainstream churches in the country were not carrying out any conversion and it was the 'new generation churches' which were doing it.

The silence of union minister of state for tourism and the lone and maiden BJP MP from Kerala, actor-turned politician Suresh Gopi, on the arrest of nuns was coming under criticism from CPI(M) and Congress camps.