‘No one will be able to forcibly convert Hindu girls’: Maharashtra Cabinet clears ‘anti-love jihad’ Bill

The Bill will be tabled in the state legislature and will come into force upon passage by both Houses and the Governor’s assent.

Confirming the development, Rane said: “The draft has been approved in the cabinet meeting against the Love Jihad or Anti Conversion bill and soon a government resolution would be issued about it.”

“This is a law against unlawful conversion and with this Bill no one will be able to forcibly marry and convert Hindu girls,” Rane told The Indian Express. He added that the draft had been prepared keeping in mind constitutional provisions, Supreme Court guidelines and existing such laws in other states.

With this decision, Maharashtra joins a growing list of states that have enacted or proposed laws against religious conversions through coercion, fraud or inducement.

Meanwhile, opposition Shiv Sena (UBT) MLA Sachin Ahir questioned the intent and scope of the bill. “Firstly it needs to be understood that law considers whom and in what context, and those who talk about ‘love jihad’ are speaking specifically about which communities and whether it is for all the communities or just one community. I think it should be for and we should speak on it only when it is fully drafted and studied,” Ahir said.

The move follows earlier indications from the state government about its intent to introduce a law against forced religious conversions. In February 2025, the Maharashtra government had issued a government resolution announcing its intention to bring in such legislation and constituted a seven-member committee headed by the Director General of Police (DGP). The committee was tasked with examining legal provisions related to religious conversions, studying existing laws in other states and suggesting a suitable legal framework for Maharashtra.

Sources said the committee’s findings and a comparative study of laws enacted in other states formed the groundwork for the proposed legislation. The draft was presented to the government on February 26 and has since been approved by the state cabinet.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has previously maintained that the government is not opposed to interfaith marriages, but has argued that cases involving coercion, concealment of identity, inducement or fraud leading to religious conversion require legal intervention.

“Where marriages happen through coercion, using false identities and with the objective of religious conversion and harassment, they need to be firmly tackled through an Act,” Fadnavis had said earlier.

The BJP-led Mahayuti government had also included a commitment to bring such legislation as part of its political messaging around alleged cases of forced religious conversions, described as “love jihad”.

The development comes days after Gujarat, another BJP-ruled state, tabled amendments to its marriage registration law making parental consent mandatory. In the Gujarat Assembly last week, Deputy Chief Minister Harsh Sanghavi said that “under the name of love jihad, a game is being played in the state” and that “a strong armour needs to be created for young girls”.

The matter of anti-religious conversion laws also reached the Supreme Court on Monday, which decided to examine the validity of such laws enacted by 12 states, even as Christian groups submitted that these statutes “incentivise” vigilante groups to commit acts of violence against minorities. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant issued notice to the Union Government through the Ministry of Law and Justice, as well as to Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.