All India Christian Council Statement on Congress victory in Indian General Elections

ALL INDIA CHRISTIAN COUNCIL

PRESIDENT: Dr Joseph Dsouza Secretary General Dr John Dayal

PRESS STATEMENT
New Delhi, 16 May 2009

[The following is the text of the Press Statement issued on behalf of
the All India Christian Council by its Secretary general, Dr John
Dayal, on the results of the General Elections to the Lok Sabha, the
House of the Peoples of the India Parliament. The results were
declared today after five rounds of voting which began on 16th April
and ended 13th May 2007, involving an electorate of over 714 million.
The results gave the Congress, currently in power, 203 seats in the
543-member House, and its United Progressive Alliance 260 seats, with
the National Democratic Alliance led by the Bharatiya Janata party
getting 163, the BJP itself scoring, 121, and the Left Front 24.]

The All India Christian Council salutes the people of India for the
consummate and decisive manner in which they have rejected divisive,
communal and sectarian political forces in the General elections
results for which have been declared today. Their vote, for
secularism, stability and development, imposes on the party they have
trusted with their mandate, the Indian National Congress, and the
architects of its victory, party president Mrs Sonia Gandhi, Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh and general secretary Mr Rahul Gandhi, the
important responsibility of restoring national political discourse and
governance to its pristine values inscribed in the Constitution and
articulated by the country’s founding fathers.

We hope the national leaders of the party and the Government will
correct the aberrations that crept in after 1991 leading to the
demolition of the secular fabric of the country, untold misery to the
people, unprecedented bloodshed and massacres of religious
minorities. We also hope that the government will build on its
policies to wage a winning war on poverty, to ensure food, clothing
and shelter to the vast number of people below the poverty line. This
will also demand an unceasing war on corruption and graft, and
sincerity in devolution of resources to the countryside and for urban
regeneration.

The lessons have been learnt by winners and losers alike, we hope.
India’s billion and a quarter people want human dignity and progress,
brotherhood and justice. They abhor hate-mongering, and narrow self
interest under the pretext of ideology. Above all, the people,
especially women and youth, across the country have shown that they
share a hope in the nation’s future. shunning despair and cynicism in
the midst of an economic cataclysm.

We therefore hope we will never again have to see a Gujarat 2002, or a
Kandhamal 2007-2008, that farmer’s suicides will cease and that women
will be safe in their home and on the streets of our cities.

For the Christian community, hope increases that the rapists, killers
and arsonists of Orissa’s Kandhamal and Karnataka will be brought to
justice, that our cry for development – articulated in the manifestos
we gave to the political parties on the eve of the general elections
-- will be fulfilled. The Christian community needs special economic
and development resources from the government, and should not be
relegated to the margins because of its unwavering commitment to peace
and because it does not always articulate politically its genuine
needs. Dalit Christians look forward to a realisation of their 50
year old search for equal rights, promised often but yet to be given.

The All India Christian Council warmly congratulates the Congress and
the new government that will take shape in the next few days. The
Council extends its full cooperation in efforts at National
Integration, Human rights, the emancipation of Dalits and Human
dignity. It also congratulates those who have won for the BJP, the
Left and the Third and Fourth Fronts. Each Member of Parliament has a
God given Duty to work for the common man. We pray God will bless them
abundantly.

God bless India.

Released to the Media by Dr John Dayal