Andhra 's Christian pastors refuses govt honorarium fearing loss of their SC status

A year after the Legal Right Protection Forum exposed how Christian pastors had misused reservation benefits of SC, OBCs, now the Christian Pastor of Andhra Pradesh has refused govt honorarium fearing loss of their SC status.

According to the reports on social media platforms, Christian pastors of Andhra Pradesh have reportedly said that they do not want honorariums from the Government of Andhra Pradesh due to fear of losing their Schedule Caste status.

LRPF had revealed that 70% of the 29,841 Christian pastors, who received a one-time government honorarium of ₹5,000 through the Disaster Relief Fund, hold Scheduled Caste / Other Backward Caste certificates illegally.

It should be noted that the SC/OBC certificates are given only to practicing Hindus. The LRPF called it “state assisted incentive to convert to Christianity”.

LRPF has also lodged complaint with the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and National Commission for Backward Classe regarding this matter.They requested the Commission to launch an immediate enquiry into the whole issue and send a high-power fact-finding committee to the State to study the issue of misuse of reservation benefits of SCs, OBCs and help the genuine SCs to utilise their legitimate constitutional benefits.

In their complaint, they explained, "The State government resorted to large-scale misuse of public funds in the matter of payment of monthly salary or honorarium to converted Christians from Hindu SC and OBCs holding dual religious identities. This is also leading to misuse of Constitutional safeguards and reservations by converted Christians."