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Shahid K Abbas in New Delhi
The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress party appeared set for another round of acrimonious confrontation with the former calling upon all parties to support a legislation to ban forcible conversions and the latter 'strongly deploring' the ordinance promulgated by the Tamil Nadu government on Saturday night banning religious conversions by force.
BJP president Venkaiah Naidu, inaugurating the national executive meeting of the party's minority morcha, 'welcomed' the Tamil Nadu government's decision, while chief Congress spokesman S Jaipal Reddy said, "We are opposed to the ordinance on philosophical, libertarian and democratic grounds. We are not for conversions but we would defend everybody's right to convert."
The Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Forcible Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2002, bans religious conversions by 'force or fraud' in the state and says, "Any person who forces or allures anyone to convert from one religion to another will be imprisoned for up to three years and fined Rs 50,000."
"We will oppose it tooth and nail in the Tamil Nadu assembly as there was neither any provocation nor a warrant. We are doubtful about the intentions and the possibility of its misuse by the law enforcing authority," Reddy said.
Naidu, however, accused the Congress of appeasing the fundamentalists and the backward-looking leadership in the minority communities.
"Instead of encouraging the minorities to harness various opportunities that came in the wake of development since independence, the Congress party guided them on a course of withdrawal and isolation from mainstream as a result of which there was an emotional gulf between them and other sections of the society," Naidu said.
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