SP MLA demands scrapping of govt’s ‘Love Jihad’ committee

The Interfaith Marriage Family Coordination Committee was set up on December 13, 2022, by the then WCD Minister and BJP leader Mangal Prabhat Lodha

MUMBAI: Rais Shaikh, the Samajwadi Party MLA from Bhiwandi constituency, has demanded the scrapping of the Interfaith Marriage Family Coordination Committee set up by the Women and Child Development (WCD) department to track alleged ‘love jihad’ cases. The legislator has written a letter to deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar and WCD minister Aditi Tatkare in this regard.

Rais Shaikh (Hindustan Times)

The Interfaith Marriage Family Coordination Committee was set up on December 13, 2022, by the then WCD Minister and BJP leader Mangal Prabhat Lodha. The committee was the result of several agitations by Hindutvavadi organisations who were opposed to interfaith marriage and termed the latter ‘love jihad’.

After Ajit Pawar joined the state government, the WCD department, which was with the BJP, went to the NCP. Unlike the BJP’s political agenda of Hindutva, the NCP under Ajit Pawar’s leadership has continuously claimed that it has not given up its secular ideology even after joining hands with the BJP. It is against the backdrop of this change of guard that Shaikh wrote the letter to Ajit Pawar and Aditi Tatkare.

“The then minister Lodha had claimed that there were more than one lakh cases of alleged love jihad in the state,” says Shaikh’s letter. “However, I have received information under RTI that the committee has received only 402 complaints so far. These complaints include not just two particular communities but other communities as well. Hence the government should scrap this committee and the government resolution.” Shaikh also questioned the intention behind setting up the committee.

The SP MLA has also written to legislative assembly speaker Rahul Narwekar, reiterating that Lodha lied. “Lodha claimed in the legislature on March 8, 2023, that there were one lakh cases of alleged love jihad in the state. However, the information provided to me by the WCD department under RTI shows that the committee did not receive a single complaint till March 20, 2023. Lodha made a false, baseless and misleading statement in the House. Hence the government should clarify the facts in this matter in the House,” demanded Shaikh.