March of the minority

By Vinod Kumar

The Revenue and Endowment Board of Andhra Pradesh, which maintains the statistics and accounts of the religious institutions in the state, has prepared the following report. This document reveals the alarming growth of minority religious institutions in the state which has a Christian Chief Minister and Home Minister and is in the forefront of fanning communalism and Naxalism through administrative largesse. Though the Christians are not even 2 per cent in AP and the Muslims are less than 15 per cent, yet, they have a greater clout than the 80 per cent Hindu population. The contents of the document are really shocking.

The existing number of temples, mosques and churches in Andhra as on March 31, 2005:
District Temples Churches Mosques
Adilabad 12,346 3,347 18,482
Ananthpur 14,008 4,892 9,328
Chittor 26,120 9,098 12,320
Cuddpah 22,982 7,241 14,223
East Godavari 8,220 12,123 9,230
Guntur 9,302 16,388 5,429
Hyderabad (Rangareddy) 13,144 3,204 15,203
Kakinada 7,203 8,585 5,274
Karimnagar 4,129 1,648 9,714
Khammam 5,210 7,203 5,922
Krishna 8,929 8,462 3,769
Kurnool 6,549 5,203 9,293
Machlipatnam 5,000(approx.) 8,320 6,493
Mahboobnagar 3,299 3,128 7,235
Medak 6,302 3,203 3,234
Nellore 7,993 6,782 7,323
Nalgonda 6,882 2,412 5,239
Nizamabad 4,638 3,203 9,366
Prakasham 4,255 5,583 4,932
Srikakulam 7,339 9,879 2,140
Warangal 1,393 6,320 1,342
West Godavari 3,293 5,464 2,765
Visakhapatnam 6,430 3,203 4,203
Vizianagaram 3,891 3,100 3,500