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Freedom to Religion Bill doesn’t make it to Haryana budget session
On session eve, deputy CM Dushyant Chautala had differed with state home minister Anil Vij over term love jihad
The proposed Freedom to Religion Bill was not tabled during the budget session of the Haryana assembly that drew to a close on Thursday.
A day before the session began on March 5, deputy chief minister Dushyant Chautala said that he did not agree with the phrase love-jihad, a term coined by state home minister Anil Vij for the proposed Bill.
Chautala said that his Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), an ally of the ruling BJP, will support the move to enact a law for stopping forced religious conversions. “But if someone is willing to convert on his own, there should not be a bar,” he said.
Vij had said earlier that the state government planned to introduce the Bill to curb love-jihad in the assembly’s budget session.
On November 6 last year, he told the assembly that the government was compiling information about instances where forced religious conversions took place to give effect to an inter-faith wedding.
Chief minister ML Khattar had also said that the state government would introduce the Bill to stop forced conversions. “People are free to adopt any religion in an informed manner but using coercion, allurement to force religious conversions is a matter of concern. We are studying similar laws enacted by other states and will accordingly take a call,” Khattar had said.
