Karnataka govt decides to repeal anti-conversion law introduced by BJP

The Congress-led Karnataka government has decided to scrap a law against religious conversion that was introduced by the previous BJP-led government. The proposal to repeal the law received a nod from the state cabinet today, Law & Parliamentary Affairs minister HK Patil said on Thursday. The Bill was introduced by the state’s former Home Minister Araga Jnanendra amid strong opposition in the Winter Session of the Assembly. However, the Basavraj Bommai-led government passed the bill as it “wanted  to prohibit conversion by misrepresentation, force, allurement, fraudulent means, or marriage.” The Opposition, on the other hand, called the Bill “anti-people”, “inhuman”, “anti-constitutional”, “anti-poor” and ”draconian.” The Bill, according to The Hindu, provided for the “protection of the right to freedom of religion and prohibition of unlawful conversion from one religion to another by misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means.” The Karnataka Cabinet on Thursday confirmed that it has dropped a chapter on RSS founder KB Hedgewar from the school syllabus. Along with it, all the changes in school syllabi made by the BJP government have also been reversed. “…syllabus on KB Hedgewar has been dropped…whatever changes they (previous govt) have done last year, we have changed it and reintroduced whatever was there last to last year…,” said Karnataka Education Minister Madhu Bangarappa. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and School Education Minister Madhu Bangarappa had reportedly reached this decision during a meeting focused on educational reforms in Bengaluru recently. Karnataka Minister HK Patil said the decision to make reciting the Preamble of the Constitution along with the hymn in schools and colleges was also taken during the Cabinet meeting. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook_,_  Twitter and  Instagram_._