Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had not converted to Christianity for volunteering in Missionaries for Charity - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
September 14, 2021
A screenshot of a tweet purportedly made by Supreme Court lawyer and BJP Uttar Pradesh spokesperson Prashant Patel Umrao is being shared on social media claiming that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is an anti-Hindu and a Crypto Christian. This post claims that Mother Teresa had converted Kejriwal to Christianity in 1992 and thereafter, Kejriwal had volunteered for Missionaries of Charity for 6 months. Also, this post claims Kejriwal as a member of an international syndicate against Hinduism. Let’s verify the claims made in the post.
Claim: Mother Teresa converted Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal into Christianity and thereafter, he volunteered for Missionary of Charity for 6 months.
Fact: This tweet is now not available on Prashant Patel Umrao’s Twitter handle and we could not confirm if he made any such tweet. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal multiple times proclaimed himself as a devout Hindu and a Hanuman follower. While it is true that Arvind Kejriwal had worked with Mother Teresa and volunteered for Missionaries of Charity, there is no evidence to prove that Arvind Kejriwal had converted to Christianity as mentioned in the post. Hence the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
On searching for this tweet on the Prashant Patel Umrao’s Twitter handle, we could not find this tweet. However, we could not confirm if he made any such tweet. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal in multiple interviews proclaimed himself as a ‘devout Hindu’ and a follower of Hanuman. During the 2020 town hall address with News 18 channel, Kejriwal identified himself as a devout Hindu when the anchor questioned his religion. Reporting this information, ‘Hindustan Times’ published an article on 03 February 2020.
When we searched to check whether Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had worked as a volunteer for Missionaries of Charity, it is found out that Kejriwal had volunteered for Missionaries of Charity. Arvind Kejriwal through a tweet confirmed that he had worked with Mother Teresa for few months at Nirmal Hriday Ashram in Kolkata. Arvind Kejriwal had described multiple interactions with Mother Teresa during the ‘News 18’ interview conducted in 2016. According to the ‘News 18’ article, Arvind Kejriwal joined Missionaries of Charity after he resigned from Tata Steel in Jamshedpur. In 2013, ‘India TV’ reported that Arvind Kejriwal while explaining his work experience with Mother Teresa had said, “There were lots of people in these villages who had started turning to Christianity. Somehow, I started feeling guilty. Is Hinduism doing sufficient things for its own people? What are we doing for them?”. But he had never said that he converted to Christianity to serve Missionaries of Charity.
Arvind Kejriwal as the Chief Minister of Delhi had visited multiple churches and Christian events in Delhi. In 2019, while addressing a Christian and New Year Celebration at the Delhi Assembly, Arvind Kejriwal said, “Our government has completed five years and the satisfaction we have is that we have tried to run it on the path shown by Christ”. Arvind Kejriwal made this statement to explain that his government is considering the diversity of the country and giving equal importance to all religions. Kejriwal had never identified himself as a crypto Christian. Also, there is no such organization called ‘International Syndicate against Hinduism’ for Arvind Kejriwal to be a part of it.
To sum it up, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal had not converted to Christianity for volunteering in Missionaries for Charity.