Panaji: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar
Wednesday accused Gujarat-based Catholic priest and human rights activist
Father Cedric Prakash of trying to spread religious and social discontent based
on "falsehoods" in Goa before the general election.
Equating the priest with controversial Sri
Rama Sene chief Pramod Muthalik, Parrikar, justifying police action against
Facebooker Devu Chodankar following his anti-Narendra Modi posts, said action
should have been taken against Prakash too.
"Father Cedric Prakash has said much
more serious things which were not true," Parrikar said, while addressing
a press conference here.
Ahmedabad-based Prakash, a Jesuit priest,
made a whirlwind tour of Goa with the support of the Roman Catholic Church in
Goa, during which he accused Modi of religious intolerance and attacked the
Gujarat model of governance.
He further alleged that in Gujarat every
one lived in fear.
"The voice of the media has been
throttled and muzzled. People in Gujarat are living in fear. IAS officers are
living in fear. The lives of their families have been ruined," Prakash
claimed at a meeting at the Grace Church hall in Margao, in south Goa March 20,
a few weeks before Goa went to polls.
Parrikar also said that he despised those
who "used religion for politics" and clubbed both Prakash, as well as
Muthalik, head of the notorious right-wing Sri Rama Sene, in the same bracket.
Muthalik has often triggered controversy in the past by attacking patrons of
pubs in Mangalore for adopting "Western culture", and exhorting
Hindus to arm themselves with swords.
"I count Father Cedric and Pramod
Muthalik as the same. People who use religion as a tool for electioneering are
dangerous," said Parrikar, whose government is being accused by the
opposition as well as civil society of carrying out a witch hunt against
Chodankar.
In Goa, where the Catholics account for
nearly one-third of the population, Prakash's whirlwind pre-election lecture
tour and a circular by the Church imploring voters to cast ballots in favour of
a secular candidate did dent the BJP vote tally, even though the party managed
to win both the seats from the state in the Lok Sabha election.
Soaurce: IANS
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