MP: Christian Names Deleted From The Voter List *Blessed Bovines & Twisted Priorities

From: http://www.konkanuae.com/home/news.asp?id=9328

Madhya Pradesh, May 05, 2012: Madhya Pradesh has again come into controversy with alleged deletion of Christians from the voter list. Isai Mahasangh, an ecumenical forum has constituted a three member committee to probe into the alleged deletion of names of Christians from the voters’ list. The Christians view it as a case of clear case of deprives them of their right to franchise.

The core committee of the Isai Mahasangh convened its meeting on Wednesday to take stock of the situation and decided to conduct a probe into it before taking an appropriate decision said president of the ecumenical forum Sujit William here on Thursday.

The initial reports suggested that names of 20000 Christians were deleted from the voters list from cities such as state capital Bhopal and Jabalpur, he told. The issue he said came to the notice when the voters list was checked to identify the eligible voters to cast vote for the district unit election of the Mahasangh.

‘When we checked the voters list many Christians who already got enrolled in the list got shocked to find their names missing from it’, he said. Subsequent, interactions with the community members it was noticed that the same irregularities were there in other places as well and decided to draw up a complete picture of the situation before moving to the higher authority, he added.

Meanwhile, the main Opposition in the state Congress party has also blamed the state government for playing a very dirty politics to deprive the Christians of their constitutional right to franchise.

Vishwanath Dubey, former Mayor and state vice president of Congress also wrote a letter to his party’s state president Kantial Bhuria apprising him of the development and pledged to help Christians to enroll their name back voters list.

Madhya Pradesh is scheduled to hold its Assembly at the end of next year. It is believed that Christians are traditionally to be Congress supporters hence deletion of their names has raised many questions in the political circle.

Earlier, the Government had come under fire with the matter conducting a profiling of Christians in a bid painting them as criminals, but they had to withdraw after the protest led by Iasi Mahasangh got support from across the country.

The Christians, he said would address it also legally and would not let the Christians to lose their voting right.

Meanwhile, the Spokesperson of the Catholic Church in the state Father Anand Muttungal who has now been designated as the chief spokesperson of Mahasangh, said that he would write to Church heads (all denominations) to encourage people cross check the voters list and ensure that no Christian was deprived of one’s voting right.
Source : The CSF