The joint statement issued by the BJP and its allies. after the four hour coordination committee meeting does not contain a single word of condemnation of the continued attacks on Christians, their churches, schools and other charitable institutions. Leave apart condemnation, there is no reference to the ghastly incidents of Christian bashing at all.

Not even the gruesome murder of Australian missionary and his two minor sons find any mention in the joint statement. There is just a simple observation about the responsibility of the BJP as the core of alliance "to ensure that the prestige and cohesiveness of the coalition are not diluted by organisations belonging to its ideological fraternity".

It means the allies representatives who attended the coordination meeting have, despite their earlier heroic, meekly swallowed the explanation doled out by union home minister Advani on the Christian bashing. He has shamelessly exonerated the culprit organisations like Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad ..

From the utterances of the leaders of Hindutva Brigade it is obvious that the crux of the problem is not conversion, but the campaign of Shudhikaran (reconversion) which the VHP and BD want to intensify in the coming days. The parties which claim to be secular but have aligned with BJP for sharing power have to clarify their stand on the campaign of Shudhikaran launched by Hindutva organisations. Their silence ... put a question mark on their commitment.