Mumbai: Amid rising concerns in India against forced conversions of poor Muslims and Christians by the Hindutva extremist organisations, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi said behind the move is the 'vote-bank' politics of the ruling BJP.
He said that controversial statements being regularly made by BJP and RSS leaders only indicate that the BJP in a systematic way wants to make its support base stronger.
"Statements of RSS - like making India a Hindu Rashtra, making Ram Mandir before 2019, Gita being given national book status, all these statements have only one motive - to make Hindu vote bank stronger", he said.
"As far as conversions go, all these are related to RSS," he added.
Stating that an atmosphere of hate is being created by BJP to terrorise both Hindus and Muslims, Owaisi said, "I have all the rights to lodge protest against the Prime Minister as every other day we witness BJP leaders making communal statements to please their die-hard Hindu supporters."
The MIM chief also questioned the centre and its response to the controversies.
"When Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister; he used to address Manmohan Singh as 'Maunmohan'. Why is he silent now even after listening to all these comments by BJP leaders? The country will question Modi on his promises in the year 2019", he said.
The MIM chief also said that he would oppose the anti-conversion law saying "implementation of the legislation will be an insult to former prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru".
Bajrang Dal and other Hindu organisations had last week claimed that about 300 Muslims had embraced Hinduism. Later investigations however revealed that the Muslims were lured to a fire ceremony.
"We were taken to a place where a fire ceremony was on," Munira told ABP news channel. "We were made to sit there. We became panicky...
"We were told to pray to Hindu gods. We did whatever they told us", Munira, one of the 300, said alleging that they were lured to the event on the promise of giving them a plot of land and ration cards.
"But now we are again reading the Holy Quran and our family members offered namaz today," she added.
BJP leaders and Hindutva groups in the meanwhile show no remorse, and pledged to continue with what they called as their 'Ghar Wapsi' campaign.
"We will organise Ghar Wapsi across the country," Yogi Adityanath, the BJP MP from Gorakhpur said while talking to the media.
He said the Ghar Wapsi campaign will not be confined to Uttar Pradesh.
"Ghar wapsi is a homecoming not religious conversion," he said.
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