While the whole country is grappling to fight the second wave of the deadly Covid pandemic by pooling in resources, the Andhra government under the devout Christian, Jaganmohan Reddy, is busy inviting tenders worth over Rs.4 Crores for construction of Church buildings!

Several temples across India, Hindu social organisations like the RSS, Isha Foundation, ISKCON, Swami Narayan Temples, the VHP have offered their premises across India to be converted to Covid care centres.

Ironically, we have the evangelist organisations interested in using the pandemic and funds collected for Covid care diverted for conversions and planting more churches. An evangelist organisation had recently boasted that it has converted 1,00,000 people in India to Christianity and planted thousands of churches more than it ever did in the past 25 years in the last one year, during the Covid crisis.

What is more shocking is that the government of Andhra Pradesh functioning under the ‘Secular’ Constitution of India, is avidly sponsoring, aiding and abetting evangelists in conversions and planting of churches by lavishly spending public money for building Church buildings.

The Legal Rights Protection Forum has reported that the goverment of Andhra Pradesh has started the bidding process for tenders to build Church buildings in various parts of Andhra from 26th April onwards at the cost of public money of over 4 crore rupees.

The Andhra government wastes public money on building Churches and keeps asking the centre more and more money for battling Covid crisis. Is the devout Christian CM of Andhra, whose family members are well known evangelists, diverting money meant for Covid relief to build more Church buildings and conversions?

Pertinently, Supreme Court has in the Stanislaus case of 1997 has clearly ordered that the Freedom of Conscience and the Right to Propagate one’s religion does not include a fundamental right to convert others to their religion. As a right to convert others would fundamentally infringe on the right of other religions to practice their faith. So, propagation cannot involve right to convert others.

This news comes in the background where scores of attacks on ancient Hindu temples have been reported in Andhra since the rabidly Christian YSR government came to power.

This brazen attitude of the Andhra government to continue wasting precious public money for building Churches at the time of Covid crisis, only proves its motto to convert Andhra into a Christian state by hook or crook even if people are dying because of want of healthcare facilities.

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