Congress promises to bring back the practice of Triple Talaq if voted to power

The Congress party at All India Congress Committee (AICC) minority department national convention at JLN Stadium vowed to bring back Triple Talaq if voted to power. The Congress MP Sushmita Dev said that her party will bring back the Triple Talaq law if they come to power. Earlier, she also met with Women wing of Muslim Personal Law Board who thanked her “for being their collective voice in opposing criminalizing Triple Talaq.”

On Thursday, at an event on minorities, Congress MP Sushmita Dev said, “You have seen that recently, a Triple Talaq law came, and via it, the Modi government created an environment for Muslim women to fight with Muslim Men.”

Sushmita Dev further said, “We have opposed the (Triple Talaq) law because it is a weapon that Modi ji has prepared to send Muslim men to jail.”

She felt elated that “crores of Muslim women have sent crores of letters, signatures and that the Congress party opposed it (Triple Talaq bill) in Parliament.”

And then she made the most shocking statement. Sushmita Dev said, “I promise that a Congress government will come in 2019 and we will abolish this (Triple Talaq) law.”

It is because of appeasement politics of the pseudo-secular parties and misogynist attitude of their leaders that the Muslim women of India have been deprived of rights what other Indian women possess. Just because of such attitudes of the Congress party, it has been called a party of only Muslims. 

On the other hand, PM Modi is the only Prime Minister who gave space to the issue of triple talaq in his Independence Day speech. In his third Independence speech, PM Modi had said, “I pay my respects to those women who had to lead miserable lives due to Triple Talaq and then started a movement which created an environment in the whole nation against the practice.”

The Congress party has been ignoring the concerns and sufferings of Muslim women for long. Their secularism has remained confined to appeasement politics to reap electoral benefits only. In the Shah Bano case of 1986, the victim was robbed of her alimony by the Rajiv Gandhi government for vote bank politics. The then PM Rajiv Gandhi opened the can of worms by overturning the decision of the Supreme Court that awarded her alimony in lieu of her divorce.

Last year in December, the Lok Sabha passed the Triple Talaq bill that made the archaic practice of instant divorce among Muslim community a punishable offense. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2018 was cleared by the Lok Sabha with 245 MPs voting in favour and 11 opposing it. The opposition parties staged a walkout as the government declined to accept their demand of sending it to the select committee. However, the bill got stuck in Rajya Sabha where NDA does not have the majority. However, on 29 December, the AICC general secretary K C Venugopal had said that the Congress party will not allow the passage of the triple talaq bill in the Rajya Sabha.

It’s quite ironic to see that a party (BJP) which is labeled as anti-Women and anti-Minority has done the most for the women of the minority community. It also shows the extent to which the BJP has been cornered by media through propaganda.