: Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat has lambasted RSS General Secretary Dattatreya Hosabale for his comments where he said that religious conversion and infiltration are causing “population imbalance” in India. Karat alleged that RSS was misleading the country.

Hitting out at RSS, the left leader Karat told ANI that everybody knows that the community-wise fertility rate, as per the latest National Family Health Survey shows, saw the sharpest decrease among the Muslim community.

“There has been a 46.5 per cent decline in the last 10 years in the Muslim Community whereas in the Hindu community is a 41.5 per cent decline. So the decline in fertility rate is amazing because it is linked to the facts that understanding of the community as a whole is now changing,” she said.

Brinda Karat further told  that now RSS is trying to mislead the country and she feels there is a “communal dimension” behind it.

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale earlier this week said that religious conversion and migration from border areas were causing “population imbalance” and called for strict implementation of anti-conversion laws.

Hosabale made the comments on Wednesday while addressing the media in Prayagraj after the conclusion of a four-day meeting of the RSS’s all-India working committee.

At the Akhil Bharatiya Karyakari Mandal meeting, raising concerns about “unabated” religious conversions in the country, Hosabale called for a formulation of a population policy and its uniform application to everyone.

The RSS leader claimed that due to conversions the “population of Hindus has decreased at many places in the country and the consequences of this have been witnessed too”.

He added that “infiltration” from border areas was a factor in population imbalance, which has created social and economic tensions. Hosabale claimed that population imbalance has led to the partition of several countries, including India, in the past. (ANI)