BJP ducks for cover on Obama’s parting shot

US President Barack Obama’s parting shot on religious conversions had the ruling BJP ducking for cover on Tuesday.

In his Town Hall’s style address to 2,000 youngsters at Siri Fort auditorium here, Obama stressed on upholding religious freedom. This came at a time when the BJP’s ideological affiliate, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), has re-launched its controversial Ghar Wapasi campaign.

BJP leaders have publicly demanded an anti-conversion law.

The US President said: “Article 25 (of the Indian Constitution) says that all people are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion. In both our countries, in all countries, upholding this fundamental freedom is the responsibility of the government.”

This was Obama’s last public engagement in Delhi, marking the culmination of a visit that the BJP described as a “landmark in Indo-US strategic partnership”.

But the five spokespersons and Minister-in-waiting for the visiting dignitaries, Piyush Goyal, whom the BJP had lined up at the party headquarters on Monday afternoon, struggled to explain how Obama’s comments were not a reflection on the party’s posturing on the issue.

“We are here to explain the larger picture that emerges from the visit. We are not looking at the minutiae in every engagement,” said a leader.

All the spokespersons and senior leaders including Goyal, Sudhanshu Trivedi, Sidharth Nath Singh, GVL Narasimha Rao, Sambit Patra and Shrikant Sharma joined the chorus on the immense success of the visit but refrained from reacting to what Obama said about religious freedom.

The Congress, however, would not miss it out. “I do hope that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi was listening carefully to the speech,” said former Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tiwari.

The Congress leader attacked the ruling party for promoting a “majoritarian ethos that goes against the very grain of liberal democracy”.