Finance Minister Arun Jaitley hosts tea for cardinal, archbishops

NEW DELHI: In another attempt to reach out to the Christian community, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley hosted tea for about 200 clergymen, including a cardinal and two archbishops, at his residence on Tuesday.
Oswald Gracias, the Mumbai based Indian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, and Bishop Jacob Mar Barnabas, head of the Delhi-Gurgaon diocese of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, were among those who attended.

Earlier, home minister Rajnath Singh had attended a Christmas dinner organised by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India and PM Modi met the heads of all three churches during his Kerala visit two weeks ago.

The bishops said they were initially invited on Christmas Day but had to excuse themselves, saying it was a busy day for them, after which the minister postponed the gathering. Former bureaucrat and BJP member KJ Alphons is understood to have implemented the initiative, said to have come from the PM himself.

The clergymen said they had expected Modi to drop in for a while, but that did not happen. Ministers Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar, Harsh Vardhan, Nirmala Sitharaman and Rajyavardhan Rathore, BJP general secretary Ram Lal, BJP spokespersons Nalin Kohli and MJ Akbar and government spokesman Frank Noronha were present, apart from diplomats and representatives of various embassies.