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‘Apologise for sins’: CPI MP targets BJP after PM Modi meets Christian priests
Communist Party of India Rajya Sabha MP Binoy Viswam said the BJP should first apologise to the Christian community for the ‘sins they have committed’ to their faith
The Communist Party of India (CPI) on Tuesday targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with top Christian priests in Kerala, saying that the ruling party should first apologise to the community for the “sins they have committed” to their faith.
Speaking on a television debate, CPI leader and Rajya Sabha member Binoy Viswam also said that the BJP’s Christian outreach in Kerala was not a worrying point for his party, which is an ally in the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) in the state.
Addressing Union minister of state for minority affairs John Barla, who was his co-panelist in the debate, Viswam said, “I request the minister (Barla) to tender his apology to the Christian community and all the minority community and tell them whatever they were preaching was wrong and tell them that their basic approach towards Christian faith was thoroughly mistaken.”
“I request the minister and his PM to also accept that baseless allegations and propaganda were made against the community in MS Golwalkar’s book ‘Bunch of Thoughts’. They should tell the nation that these anti-christian approaches were anti-national and anti-secular and all the deeds were against the unity of India,” he added.
Earlier on April 18, Barla had met Syro-Malabar Church major archbishop Mar George Alencherry in Kochi and said that Christians are ‘safe’ under PM Narendra Modi’s government.
Vishwam said that it was important for the government to apologise to the family of Graham Staines who was burned to death with his two sons by Hindutva groups on the intervening night of January 22-23 in 1999 when the family was sleeping in their station wagon in front of a church in a village.
PM Modi on Monday met the top priests of various churches in Kerala on Monday, giving a push to the BJP’s efforts to reach out to the community in the southern state ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. After the BJP’s poll wins in three Northeastern states including Christian-dominated Nagaland and Meghalaya last month, PM Modi had announced that the party-led alliance would form a government in Kerala too, where the Cristians form a sizeable chunk of population, in the coming years.
Asked if the BJP’s Christian outreach was a worrying point for the CPI, Viswam said, “We are not at all worried, why should we be worried, that is the culture of Kerala. They will accept an invitation from anybody to come and meet them and talk to them and exchange views. I don’t know if the Christian priests who met the PM today have raised the concerns of the Indian Christians.”
The ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) and the opposition Congress in Kerala earlier called upon the people to reject the BJP’s “double standards” and protect Kerala’s secular character after the BJP had decided to visit Christian homes on Easter Muslim homes on Eid.
Defending the outreach bid, the BJP had asserted that both the CPI(M) and the Congress were jittery over losing their minority vote bank.
