The Christian community in an eastern Indian state has taken a cautious “wait and watch” approach after the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a landslide in the state, where anti-Christian violence claimed around 100 lives over 15 years ago.
The BJP pulled off a stunning victory in the just concluded Odisha state elections. It defeated the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), a secular regional party that ruled the state uninterruptedly for 24 years. The BJP won 78 seats in the 147-member Odisha State Assembly and se-cured 20 of the 21 parliamentary seats in the simultaneously held state and parliamentary elections. The results were declared on June 4. Mohan Majhi, a four-time BJP legislator, was sworn in as the chief minister on June 12. The 52-year-old politician was a teacher in a school run by the powerful Hindu group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS—National Volunteer Corps). The RSS is considered the mother organization of the BJP and an umbrella body of all hardline Hindu organizations in the country that are blamed for attacking religious minorities such as Christians and Muslims. “The change of guard is a matter of concern for us Christians as our people have not yet fully reco-vered from the shock of the 2008 Kandhamal riot,” said Father Ajay Singh, a priest from the Archdiocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar, based in the state capital Bhubaneswar. It is the first time the BJP has come to power on its own strength in the state. The new chief minister Majhi is regarded as “a strong and firebrand tribal leader” from the mineral-rich Keonjhar (now Kendujhar) district, which hit headlines in early 1999 for burning to death Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons. “We will wait and watch how the new government will run the state as we cannot judge a new government based on the record of a political party or its affiliate groups,” Singh, who is an activist-lawyer, told. The Catholic priest said the only relief was that the BJP failed to garner the 272 seats required for a majority in the parliament.