Congress slams Minister Kiren Rijiju's Hindu population remark, urges poll panel to take action

New Delhi: Congress on Monday slammed Union minister Kiren Rijiju’s statement on reduction of Hindu population as an attempt at polarising the electorate and urged Election Commission to take cognisance of the matter. Through a series of tweets, Mr Rijiju on Monday claimed that Hindu population was decreasing in India as they “never convert people”, while minorities are flourishing unlike some other countries.

“The Election Commission must take very serious cognisance of this extremely irresponsible statement/tweets put out by the MoS Home,” Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said.

Citing the 2011 census data, Mr Tewari said Hindu population has not reduced so much that someone should have so much of concern.

“The census also says growth rates of other religions has fallen more than the majority’s,” he said.

The Census data further points out that the population growth rate of various religion has come down in the last decade, he said.

Mr Tewari said, according to 2011 data, the Hindu population growth rate slowed down to 16.76 per cent from the previous decades’ (1991-2001) figure of 19.92 per cent.

He said the Muslims witnessed a sharp fall in the growth rate to 24.60 per cent in 2001-11 period from the previous figures of 29.52 (1991-2001) per cent.

“Such sharp fall in the population growth rate for Muslims did not happen in the last six decades,” he said.

Mr Tewari said the BJP was making such statements out of “desperation” as it was “losing” in the five states where assembly polls are being held.

He also said the conduct of the MoS, Home Affairs, was “unbecoming” of a minister and that the intellectual quotient of NDA ministers was on the “decline”.

He said the statement “smacks of desperation” and of the fact that BJP has lost the plot.