Team Herald
PANJIM: The Nationalist Catholic Front (NCF) has strongly condemn the administration of the Union Territories of Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu for cancelling the compulsory/gazetted holiday on Good Friday on April 19 and for making it an optional/restricted holiday.
In a press note issued here, the Front said that it strongly sympathises with the Christian community of these Union Territories in their pain and anguish and the restrictions in the practice of their faith, which they practised for centuries in India, which was always multicultural.
The NCF said that it also supports the Catholics Bishops Conference of India and Anthony Francisco Duarte from Moti Daman, who has filed a petition in the Bombay High Court challenging the notification issued by the administration.
Recalling such an attempt made in Goa to cancel December 3, and Good Friday as holidays, and December 25 was also sought to be made a working day and celebrated as “Good Governance Day,” the NCF said, “This we perceived, was an attempt to diminish the significance of the great event of the birth of Jesus Christ, which is celebrated internationally by Christians and others alike, and an attack on Freedom of Religion, which is guaranteed by the Constitution of India.”
In view of the attempt to undermine the rights of the minorities, the NCF has urged the right thinking patriotic citizen of India, Christians and minorities in particular, to vote according to their conscience.
The NCF has also requested voters to vote for that party which believes in an India which is envisioned in the Sacred Constitution of India, which enshrines a multicultural, multiethnic and multi-religious nation, a party which works for justice, liberty and equality of all races, religions, caste, class and ethnic groups.
The Nationalist Catholic Front has also requests voters to vote for that party which would ensure peace, religious harmony, religious freedom and progress and prosperity of all Indians, including ethnic and religious minorities.
“Christians are very patriotic and have contributed immensely to the freedom struggle of India and Goa like other communities and at this critical election 2019, wish that our great nation progresses in peace and prosperity, with great pride in its rich and treasured diversity of communities,” says the press note issued by NCF President Edwin Fonseca.
