The political secretary of the Sikkim Chief Minister on Sept. 30 denied allegations that he was using his position to spread Christianity in the northeastern Indian Himalayan state.
“Today, I am shocked and pained to learn about the wild, unfounded and dubious allegations leveled against me by a former minister and present Dentam MLA N.K. Subba about my faith,” Jacob Khaling Rai, a Protestant Christian who serves as the political secretary of Prem Singh Tamang, says in a statement issu-ed September 30.
A day earlier, ANI news age-ncy reported from New Delhi that Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP, World Hindu Council) working president Alok Kumar had written to federal Home Minister Amit Shah alleging that Rai indulged in “conversions.”
Kumar alleged that Rai was using his post to “spread Christianity and conversion to Christianity” in Sikkim.
He also said that Subba had met him and handed over a compilation of news of public appearances of Rai, “all for the promotion of Christianity and Christian Institutions in Sikkim.”
The VHP leader, a lawyer, also said that he believed that the assignment of a chief minister’s political secretary and the responsibility of a pastor engaged in promoting Christianity are different. “They should not be allow-ed to be mixed,” Kumar asserted in his letter.