BJP chief Nadda held closed-door meeting with Kerala Bishops: Report
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Kochi: The BJP national president JP Nadda, who was in Kerala for party events, was reported to have met two Catholic Bishops privately as part of the saffron party's alleged effort to woo the Kerala Christian community.
A report in The Hindu claimed that the BJP chief had met Knanaya Catholic Archbishop Mathew Moolakkatt and the Metropolitan Archbishop of Changanassery, Mar Joseph Perumthottam at the premises of Caritas hospital when he was in Kerala for the inauguration of a newly constructed BJP office in Kottayam.
However, no official statement over the meeting has been made yet either by the BJP official or by church leadership.
The BJP leaders and the Church authorities are said to have been engaging in dialogues for quite a long time. These engagements are viewed to have intensified the Islamophobic comments from the Church authorities.
Being a religious community, the Church had restrained itself from making conspicuous statements targeting other religious communities until recently when a prominent Bishop heavily came upon the Muslim community accusing them of indulging in 'Narcotic Jihad', besides the old 'Love Jihad' charge.
The most recent among them was a letter by Thalassery Archbishop Joseph Pamplani to all churches under the diocese in the first week of September, warning that some extremist groups are attempting to trap the Christian girls.
Christian organisations such as Christian Association and Alliance for Social Action (CASA) are reported to have been keeping strong ties with the BJP, which is evident from its participation in right-wing organised programmes like Hindu Mahasabha.
The CASA members, who were given a stage at a Hindu Mahasabha held in April in Thiruvananthapuram, had loosened their tongues to harshly attack the Muslim community, making false and inappropriate charges on it with a malicious intention to aggravate the communal crevice.
Some of the prominent priests of the Catholic church including Xavier Khan Vattayil have extended their support to CASA, while some others have opposed it.