News

Lok Sabha adjourned over conversion ruckus

by IBNS 22 Dec 2014, 02:27 pm

New Delhi, Dec 22 (IBNS): The lower house of Parliament, Lok Sabha, was adjourned amid a ruckus over the conversion issue. The upper house was adjourned too earlier as the issue continued to roil Parliament and in demand of a statement by the Prime Minister.

Before the Lok Sabha was adjourned, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) M Venkaiah Naidu said they are governing the country well and people are happy and the Opposition should let them govern. 

Earlier the Rajya Sabha, where the government is in minority, saw the closing in of the Opposition ranks over the issue.  

Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien was caustic in demanding the appearance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make a statement in Rajya Sabha on the issue. 

"You don't need a 56-inches [chest] to come here, you just need a four-inch heart to come here," he said mocking the PM's reference to the same during his election campaign. 

The Opposition was united in attacking the government over conversion issue. 

 Naidu on Sunday said that there was no conflict between the party and its ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) over the issue of religious conversions.

Naidu said that that RSS chief Mohan Bahgwat had said the people who were converted into other religions have got the right to be re-converted and return to the folds of Hinduism.

The minister said that the central government would not forcibly and unilaterally bring a law to ban conversions.

Claiming that conversions and re-conversions  were nothing new as they used to happen even before Independence, he said that the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had nothing to do with it.

“The government is not getting involved either in conversions or reconversions. The BJP has nothing to do with it,” he said.