Madurai:Insisting that BJP wanted to emerge as an “alternative” force in Tamil Nadu, party general secre-tary P Muralidhar Rao on Saturday said Union Minis-ter Arun Jaitley meeting AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa did not mean that the two parties were coming to-gether.
There was no link betwe-en Jaitley meeting Jayalali-thaa and the possibility of the two parties coming together. BJP wanted to emerge as an alternative force in Tamil Nadu, he told reporters, days after the high profile meeting was condem-ned by opposition parties led by DMK which questio-ned its propriety, citing the pendency of the AIADMK chief’s appeal in Karnataka HC against her conviction in a corruption case.
“As a minister, Jaitley could have met the former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister for so many reasons, including to get her party’s support in the Lok Sabha to get bills passed. That does not mean the two parties are moving closer,” he said.
This is the first elaborate clarification by a national level BJP leader after a controversy erupted over the January 18 meeting of Jaitley. Last week, BJP state unit President Tamilisai Soundararajan had said the meeting was only to seek AIADMK’s support for passage of crucial bills in Rajya Sabha, where NDA is in a minority.
Replying to a question on Ghar Wapsi programme by a Hindu outfit in Chennai yesterday, in which nine Christians were reconverted to Hindu religion, Rao put the onus on the state gove-rnment to prevent forcible conversions, He said the party is against the practice.
“If any other organisa-tion like VHP is involved in conversion, it is a law and order problem and the state should take action. Anyway nobody can do anything about voluntarily conver-ting to other religion,” he said.”The issue of conver-sion should be looked in the spirit that if there is conversion… there would be reconversion.”(PTI)
