CM's comment calling for ban on PFI immature: Goa PFI chief

Panaji, April 23 The Popular Front of India (PFI) has called Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant's statement calling for a ban on the organisation as an "immature" one.

"We have not thought about meeting the CM so far to speak about this. The statement is immature, we do not find it necessary to clarify it," the organisation's Goa president Shaikh Rauf said on Saturday.

Earlier, Sawant, while speaking to reporters in Mumbai had said that he would write to the Centre to ban the organisation.

"PFI's statement over my anti-conversion remark was irrelevant as there'll be opposition to the increasing conversion cases in Goa. We'll never promote religious conversions in the state. PFI should be banned. We'll recommend to the Government of India to stop them," Sawant had said.

Sawant, and the PFI in Goa have been at logger-heads ever since the latter criticised Chief Minister Pramod Sawant over the latter's comments about the need to crackdown on religious conversion in Goa.

The Goa unit of the PFI in a statement earlier this week had said that the Chief Minister should not comment on non-relevant issues and focus on inflation instead, while also accusing Sawant of making comments to make his "bosses" in Nagpur happy.

Rauf on Saturday said that the outfit also condemned the call by Sawant to ban the PFI.

"First of all, the PFI Goa unit condemns the statement. Hindustan is a democratic country and everyone has a democratic right to say their piece. If a government policy is wrong, then I have the right to condemn the policy or statement. In the same spirit, we had condemned the statement made by the Chief Minister regarding religious conversions," Rauf said.

"Whenever we comment on the policies of the BJP government, they immediately react by calling for a ban on the organisation or they should be declared a terrorist organisation," he further said.

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