BJP MLA blames ban on child marriage for 'love jihad'

A BJP legislator has termed the women's legal marriageable age of 18 years as a "disease", and claimed it was the reason behind cases of 'love jihad' and elopement.

Addressing a women's event in the district yesterday, Agar Malwa MLA Gopal Parmar said that earlier families used to fix marriages of girls in their childhood and that such relationships used to "last long".

He asked parents of young girls to guard against 'love jihad' to prevent their families from being ruined. "Ever since the government started the disease of 18 years, girls started running away (eloping) from their homes," Parmar said.

He said the "love jihad fever" has now been catching up.

"We are not worried what our daughter is doing. She leaves home saying that she is going for a coaching class where naughty and shrewd people come...with whom she runs away," the legislator said.

"I request mothers and sisters that they should be careful about the love jihad fever...with sweet talks...be careful...or your homes would be ruined," he warned.