BJP terms Sonia Gandhi as anti-Hindu

New Delhi, Aug 8: The BJP today assailed Congress President Sonia Gandhi's letter to All India Christian Council regarding the Anti-conversion Bill passed by the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Council and said her stance was anti-Hindu.

Talking to newspersons, BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said the Congress opposition to the Bill was not justified as such a bill had been passed earlier during the Congress regimes in some states.

He took exception to Mrs Gandhi's comment that it was the BJP-ruled state which had adopted such a bill and assured the Christian body that this would not happen in Congress-ruled states.

Mr Malhotra said the Supreme Court had also held that conversion through incentives was bad. He said the matter was discussed at the Party's Parliamentary Party meeting this morning and all speakers criticised the Congress opposition to the Bill.

The meeting, he said, meanwhile, criticised the Congress-led UPA Government for not giving a befitting homage to late Suraj Bhan who had held the cabinet post, as chief of SC/ST Commission and also been a former Governor, former union minister and former Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

The Parliamentary Party, he said, had also decided to press a 'battery of speakers' while participating in the debate on the Pathak Authority's findings on Volcker's allegations about the non-contractual beneficiaries in the Iraqi Oil-for-Food Programme.

He said the party felt that the Pathak Authority's findings were a farce which had not revealed anything.

Similarly, the meeting also criticised the government for not taking any action against the manufacturers of soft drinks. Mr Malhotra said the Government was too soft on these companies which gave an impression that it was trying to help them instead of taking any action against them.

Setting up a committee to go into the pesticide contents in the soft drinks was merely a formality. The party wanted that these soft drinks should be banned as done by Gujarat Government till the product conformed to international standards, Mr Malhotra said.

UNI