NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi used his RSS contacts to force RSS-affiliated Dharm Jagaran Samiti late Tuesday night suspend its plan of mass conversion of the Christians in Aligarh on the Christmas day.
Samiti’s district convener Satya Prakash and city convener Rajesh Kantak declared in Aligarh that they were “postponing” the proposed “Ghar Vapasi” (home coming) programme. Their announcement came after Modi’s appeal to the BJP MPs not to cross the “laxman rekha” creating problems for the government.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu asked the Opposition in the Lok Sabha not to play up the issue creating an unnecessary fear in the hearts of the minorities, pointing out that the communal peace will be ensured and Christians will celebrate Christmas without any kind of fear of conversions.
“Some of us will even attend the (Christmas) functions. It’s a sensitive issue; wrong signals should not go to the people,” he said, appealing to all not to play up the communal politics.
Naidu also sought to deny any directive to keep schools open on the Christmas day for holding programmes on good governance. He said the government is celebrating former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s birthday falling on December 25 as the good governance day but the celebration is to be completed before Christmas and not on the Christmas Day.
The government very much “respects” Christmas and as such “everyone will celebrate Christmas,” he added even as the Opposition sought to move a privilege motion and staged a walkout to protest against the good governance celebrations by forcing students to attend schools on the Christmas holiday.
