CPI(M) and Congress accuse BJP of claiming credit for the nuns’ release to score political brownie points

Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] and Congress have accused Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of attempting to score brownie points with the sizeable Christian community in Kerala and the influential Church leadership in allegedly trying to rack up political credit for the release of two Kerala nuns on bail from a prison in BJP-ruled Chattissgarh on Saturday.

The sisters, Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis, were remand prisoners in the Durg Central jail since their arrest on July 25 on charges of attempting to spirit out three women to Agra for conversion to Christianity.

BJP State president Rajiv Chandrasekhar’s comment that Congress and CPI(M) “political theatre” in front of the Durg Central Prison had impeded the BJP-ruled Central and Chattissgarh State governments efforts to secure early bail for the sisters seemed to snuff out the geniality that politicians from Kerala briefly displayed while rubbing shoulders and distributing sweets to welcome the nuns at a convent in Chhattisgarh after their release on bail on Saturday. 

CPI(M) State Committee member John Brittas, MP, on Sunday stated that secular parties had championed the cause of justice for the sisters because they viewed the unjust arrest through the prism of the Constitution and not political expediency. 

Leader of the Opposition V.D. Satheesan had earlier accused the BJP of shedding crocodile tears for the nuns while allowing the serious charges of human trafficking and forced conversion slapped on them to stay.

Divergent views

Meanwhile, schisms seemed to develop in the Church leadership over the question of whether the BJP national leadership had genuinely come to the aid of the nuns, as the party has claimed.

For one, the Irinjalakuda diocese read out a pastoral letter in Churches on Sunday, claiming the Central and Chhattisgarh governments had done little for the nuns’ release despite a national outcry.

Irinjalakuda Diocese Bishop Mar Pauly Kannookadan dismissed the suggestion that some prelates, notably Archbishop Joseph Pamplany, praised Prime Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for intervening on the nuns’ behalf. “The Church has a clear political view. However, it is not politically partisan,” he added.