The Maharashtra government has notified a committee to frame a law against “love jihad” and “fraudulent or forced conversions”, indicating chief minister Devendra Fadnavis plans to emulate his Uttar Pradesh counterpart in charting a hard-line course to national eminence.

Yogi Adityanath’s image as a protector of Hindus is founded partly on his long campaign against “love jihad”, a term coined to describe an alleged conspiracy by Muslim men to woo and convert youngHindu women.

In 2020, Adityanath’s government passed the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act — popularly called the “love jihad law” — which prescribes stringent punishment for conversions through undue influence and requires conversions for marriage to be approved by the district magistrate. Several BJP-ruled states like Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have since passed similar laws.

Now Fadnavis, fresh from a landslide Assembly polls victory powered by a polarising campaign and widely believed to be nursing national ambitions, appears to be eyeing a similar law.

“Various organisations in the State and some citizens submitted representations regarding enacting a law to prevent love jihad and fraudulent or forced conversions. Some States in India have also enacted laws to prevent love jihad and fraudulent or forced conversions,” a Maharashtra government order said on Friday evening.

“Accordingly, it was under the consideration of the government to study the existing situation in Maharashtra and… study the law of other states and prepare a draft of the law and to form a special committee to studylegal matters.

“Accordingly, a special committee is being formed under the chairpersonship of the Director General of Police, Maharashtra State, Mumbai....”

The order does not mention a deadline for the seven-member committee to submit its report.

Fadnavis is widely regarded as a favourite with the RSS which, sources said, is trying to project him as a strong contender to succeed Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union home minister Amit Shah and Adityanath are considered the frontrunners inthe race.

The RSS had micromanaged the Maharashtra elections and tried to project Fadnavis as the face of the Mahayuti alliance. Pushed by the RSS, Fadnavis had adopted a shrill Hindutva campaign pitch, blaming a “vote jihad” for the BJP’s poor showing in the Lok Sabha polls and urging voters to defeatthe “conspiracy”.

Adityanath too had coined his strident “Batenge toh katenge (Divided, we’ll be slaughtered)” slogan on the Maharashtra campaign trail, inviting opposition from BJP allies NCP (Ajit Pawar) and Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde).

As deputy chief minister in the previous Mahayuti government, Fadnavis had spoken about examining the laws of other states to tackle religious conversions conducted solely for marriage. The then Shinde government had formed a 13-member committee to monitor interfaith marriages.

Promoted to chief minister, Fadnavis seems to have gone more strident on the subject.

Several BJP chief ministers have in the past attempted to learn from Adityanath’s Hindutva copybook. Among them was Shivraj Singh Chouhan of Madhya Pradesh (now Union agriculture minister), who had copied Adityanath’s “bulldozer politics” of demolishing the properties of people accused of crimes, most of whom turned out to be Muslims.

Another BJP chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma of Assam, too has got his government working to frame a law against “love jihad”. He told reporters last year that the new law would prescribe life imprisonment for people convicted of “love jihad”.

The Maharashtra Opposition has castigated Fadnavis’s move.

Supriya Sule, Lok Sabha MP and working president of Sharad Pawar’s NCP, said the government should focus on “real issues” instead of going after people’s right to marry or love anyone irrespective of religion.

“PM Modi has just returned from the US, and America has imposed new tariffs, which will impact our country,” Sule told reporters.

“The government should pay attention to such matters and focus on the economic situation instead of meddling in the personal lives of people.”