VHP aggressively striving for national laws against religious conversion: Milind Parande

With the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), set to complete 60 years soon, the organisation has embarked on a massive membership enrolment drive and also is aggressively striving to ensure anti-conversion laws at national level, VHP general secretary Milind Parande, said on Tuesday.

Already, the VHP had succeeded in ensuring anti-conversion laws in few states like Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Karnataka. Tamil Nadu government too should enact similar laws at state level, he said. ''It is our wish that similar law be passed in Tamil Nadu where there is a big danger of Christian conversion activity which is perfectly illegal. And that is why we will be taking up this issue,'' Parande told reporters here.

''The VHP will be completing 60 years in two years. We are taking an expansion drive and creating awareness in the society on some of the challenges being faced by the Hindus like love jihad, cow slaughter, religious conversions, and decreasing Hindu population in certain areas,'' he said.

The Hindu society should act on the challenges. ''That is why we will be contacting the society for this. VHP runs 5,700 service projects in health, education, women empowerment and skill development and it is our wish that the service projects are started in every district in the country within the next 2 years,'' he said. The organisation would reach out to 2,000 villages and cities in Tamil Nadu targeting 2 lakh new members, as part of the one crore membership drive across the nation - the Hitchintak Abhiyan - which commenced on November 6. During this fortnight, the VHP will connect with over one crore Hindus by reaching 1.5 lakh villages in the country, he noted.

Stressing that the Hindu temples should be liberated from the clutches of the government, he said there were accusations that the southern states utilised the temple properties and money on non-Hindu purposes. This can be witnessed in Srisailam and Tirupati where those who didn't believe in Hindu deities were provided employment and temple lands. ''Conversion activities are going on temple premises,'' Parande claimed.

Welcoming the move to hand over the temples to the Hindus for management in Karnataka, he said appropriate laws should be framed incorporating even the dispute mechanism in the management of temples, as a module to be adopted. He opposed extending reservation benefits to the members of the SC \ ST who have embraced Christianity or Islam and called for strict implementation of the Pune pact of 1932 which allowed extension of benefits only to the Hindu SC. Benefits after conversion should be stopped and they should be delisted. Same criteria should be applied to the tribals, who due to religions conversions, abandon the puja padathi and tradition of the Hindus.

On the ban on RSS route march in Tamil Nadu, he said ''this is nothing but Muslim appeasement by the government in restricting RSS rallies. The DMK government should rethink its position.'' On the Sri Ram temple in Ayodhya, Parande said construction would be completed by December 2023 and the idol of Ram Lalla will be installed in the sanctum sanctorum of the temple in January 2024.

The Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Khestra, the trust overseeing the construction work of the grand temple, had already said that the main temple is being constructed on 350 feet by 250 feet area and it will have 12 gates made up of teak wood. A total of 166 pillars will be installed on the ground floor, 144 on the first floor and 82 pillars on the second floor of the temple.

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