Accusing the Congress of attempting to convert lands belonging to farmers and temples into Waqf properties for vote-bank politics, the BJP has said that it will oppose any such attempt “tooth and nail”.
Addressing a press conference, senior BJP leader and former union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said so and cited multiple notices served to farmers in Vijayapura district of Karnataka and a temple facing similar claims.
He said the BJP vows to oppose such attempts vehemently.
As many as 44 properties of farmers have received such notices in three weeks, Prasad told media persons.
The Congress, he said, has been doing it due to its vote bank politics. Prasad said asserting that the BJP would “protest any such attempt tooth and nail.”
Only after a row erupted that Karnataka law minister M B Patil sought to defuse the crisis by blaming a gazette error for the notices, he claimed.
A waqf property is an endowment made by a Muslim to a religious, educational or charitable cause, and cannot be taken over for other purposes.
The Waqf Amendment Bill aims to reduce the powers of the waqf boards, which can now designate any property as waqf property.
The bill currently lies with the joint parliamentary committee which is examining it. The committee, in its latest meeting on October 28, 2024, witnessed uproar with opposition members walking out of the meet.
The BJP projecting Ravi Shankar Prasad, who has served as Union Law Minister in Narendra Modi’s government, to handle the issue clearly means that the ruling party at is in no mood to step back even an inch concerning the Waqf Amendment Bill.
The Bill, after the parliamentary panel has examined it, would be passed by the parliament as the BJP-led government has the required numbers in the parliament to get it through.
