Karnataka Christian leaders ask governor not to sign conversion ordinance

Christian religious leaders on Monday met governor Thawar Chand Gehlot to request him to not give his assent to the ordinance to ban 'forceful' religious conversions. A delegation of priests and laity met the governor and handed a memorandum signed by Bangalore archbishop Peter Machado.

The proposed anti-conversion law would become a tool for 'fringe elements' to take law into their own hands and create communal unrest, the memorandum said. It cited the census data to highlight the point that the community made up around 2.3% of India's population since Independence and the Christian population had declined marginally. It said that the hue and cry over religious conversion was 'grossly exaggerated'.

The Christian leaders in their meeting with Gehlot said that there were enough court orders to check forceful conversion. The Bommai government, meanwhile, sent the draft to Raj Bhavan for the governor's assent. The Karnataka Cabinet on May 12 decided to promulgate an ordinance to revive the proposed law that was not introduced in the legislative council for want of majority. The BJP regime had been struggling to push through the law, a key promise to voters. The state assembly had passed the bill by voice vote last December amid ruckus and dharna by Congress MLAs who wanted the BJP regime to drop the bill.