Thiruvananthapuram,10 August(HS): The Church, cutting across the different castes and creeds, have come together against the BJP and Sangh Parivar. Sunday saw Yuhannon Meletius, a bishop of the Orthodox faction of the Church, going to town ridiculing and taunting Union Minister Suresh Gopi, who represents Thrissur Lok Sabha constituency.

“Voters in Thrissur elected a film actor in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. But he has disappeared and we are thinking seriously of filing a complaint about this missing minister,” pronounced Meletius, a hardcore CPI(M) supporter who is infamous for his hatred towards Hindus.

Meletius is annoyed over the silence maintained by Suresh Gopi, a film actor-turned politician, following the arrest of two nuns in Chhattisgarh for religious conversion and human trafficking. The nuns hailing from Kerala were star proselytizers who had converted thousands of tribals in the State to Christianity.

The Bishop had come out openly against the laity extending support to the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. A cardinal by the name Mar Cleemis and archbishop Joseph Pamplany had already declared that the Christians are not safe under the present ruling dispensation at the Centre.

Organisations like Christian Association and Alliance for Social Action (CAASA), which had extended support to the BJP in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls too have fallen silent following the diktats of the bishops. The leaders of CAASA are annoyed because the BJP-led NDA Government did not take them into consideration when Governors and Lieutenant Governors were appointed.

“The alliance with the BJP is a one-way traffic. We have not been given anything in return for the services rendered by us. Moreover, religious conversion is our birthright,” said K Paily, a former Railway official about the BJP-Church ties.

Author Raju Raphel, based in Thrissur too, had reservations about the Christians aligning with the BJP and had said that the community was at home when it aligned with the CPI(M) or the Congress. With the declaration by bishop Melitius, political commentators based in Kerala are of the view that the brief honeymoon between the Hindutva party and the Church has come to an end.

Hindusthan Samachar / Manohar Yadavatti