Ever since Jagan Mohan Reddy led YSRCP has come to power in the state, time and again it has come to light that Christianity is being propagated openly by both politicians and bureaucrats in Andhra Pradesh. Following several controversial decisions benefitting the Christian community and many attempts aimed at promoting Christianity (including pictures of Jesus Christ on ration cards and increased financial aids to Christian pilgrims); we have earlier exposed how the police force has formed a group called ‘Soldiers for Jesus’.

All of these are blatant attempts at promoting Christianity by those in positions of authority which is both unlawful and against the spirit of ‘secularism’ as dictated by the constitution.

Amidst all this, independent NGO Legal Rights Protection Forum has raised a complaint against the District Collector of Guntur Mr. Samuel Anand Kumar for promoting Christianity. In a letter written to The Secretary, Department of Personnel and Training, they have highlighted how Mr. Samuel has violated rule number 4 (2)(3) of the Central Civil Service (CCS) (Conduct) Rules 1964 while delivering a speech at an educational institution on the occasion of pre-Christmas celebrations.

Lodged complaint with DoPT against Mr. Samuel Anand, District Collector of Guntur, AP for violating CCS (Conduct) Rules 1964. https://t.co/cQpY7nqCqP

— Legal Rights Protection Forum (@lawinforce) December 17, 2019

Mr. Samuel while speaking at a public function said that 6000 Christians got appointed to government jobs in Guntur district alone:

“This year is a good year for Children of Christ. Many Christians across the state got government jobs. In our Guntur district 2,000 Children of Christ were appointed to Grama Sachivalaya Posts and 3,500 Christians were appointed as Gram Volunteers. That means around 6,000 Christians got government jobs this year. Even I got job as a District Collector and my family members are very much happy for this”.

It is a blatant attempt of promoting Christianity, and as per service rules a public servant cannot openly promote any religion, although he/she may practise any religion of his/her choice. While Rule 4(2) prohibits favouring a particular religion or behaving/giving an impression that may indicate that the public servant would favour people belonging to a particular religions; Rule 4(3) calls for taking disciplinary action against him/her for proselytization. The Legal Rights Forum has invoked these rules and asked for action to be taken under them against the District Collector who had violated the said rules.

In addition, they have also requested that the names and caste/community certificates of the appointees indicated by Mr. Samuel be made public because of the fear that caste/community certificates were misused for misleading the authorities/institutions.

It is hoped that the Central Government would take cognisance of such growing violations of basic tenets of secularism in the state of AP and take strict action.

(Featured image source: thehansindia.com)

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