'bihar doesn't need anti-conversion bill': cm nitish kumar hints bjp-jdu divide on issue

No need for an anti-conversion bill in Bihar, said the Chief Minister of the state, Nitish Kumar, on Wednesday. Speaking to the media, Kumar said that the government in the state was alert 

and members of different religious communities lived in peace. > "The government has always been alert here. And all people, be they > from any religious group, live in peace. 

Hence such a move is not > required here," the Chief Minister said. The Janata > Dal-United (JDU) supremo's statement came in reply when he was > asked about the need for 

such a law in the wake of reports appearing > in the press, sporadically, about Hindus allegedly changing their > faith following enticements offered by proselytizers. With this, the

anti-conversion bill has made it to the list of issues, on which the JDU has contradicted its ally in Bihar, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the 2020 assembly elections in Bihar, the

NDA edged past the Mahagathbandhan to win the Bihar elections, with the BJP emerging as dominant partner for the first time in about two decades. The JDU won 43 seats and together, the

parties under the NDA pulled ahead with 125 seats against the Grand Alliance’s 110, 75 of which were secured by the RJD while the Congress and Left secured 19 and 16 seats respectively in

the 243-member Assembly. In spite of not getting a good number of seats, the JDU supremo was given the Chief Ministerial post but things have not been smooth with the BJP ever since. JDU has

not been on the same page with the BJP on issues such as Ayodhya, Article 370, Uniform Civil Code, triple talaq, NRC and legislative measures for population control.