The Joint Parliamentary Committee, constituted to consider the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024, saw BJP members and Opposition MPs engaging in heated exchanges during its second meeting on Friday. Several Muslim organisations, too, showed their objections to the amendment.
The first JPC meeting on the Waqf Bill was held on August 22. Subsequently, the remaining meetings of the committee are scheduled for September 5 and 6.
The extended session that went well into the night on Friday was very stormy and even saw the Opposition MPs staging a walkout in extreme outrage against the Bill. Sources said BJP members were repeatedly interrupted by the Opposition during the discussion on the Bill.
The BJP MPs were exasperated, with all feeling that they were not being allowed to state their arguments, and the Opposition attacked them for bypassing democratic mores of behavior and descending to personal attacks. There were stormy exchanges between the BJP's Dilip Saikia and the AAP's Sanjay Singh, with Singh assailing the BJP for perceived assaults on the Constitution and "power grabs."
Singh also spoke about the State of Delhi under the AAP government over the arrest of its party members, and even on the contentious proposal to give District Collectors powers over disputed Waqf properties and representation for non-Muslims on Waqf boards.
Another contentious issue discussed at the meet was that of 'Waqf by User'. In the wake of a stormy exchange with BJP's Abhijit Gangopadhyay, whom Owaisi accused of having passed an "insulting" remark, AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi from Hyderabad eventually filed a formal objection to JPC head Jagdambika Pal.
The session saw a high when the Opposition MPs walked out in protest after a Muslim member was not allowed to speak for the second time. Owaisi, A. Raja, Imran Masood, Mohammad Abdulla and Arvind Sawant walked out of the meeting briefly before returning back.
It was a light moment when there were hectic deliberations, an official goof-up in spelling 'Agakhani' as 'Afghani' while spelling out the benefits of the Bill provided comic relief. Opposition MPs joked whether the Bill was meant for India or 'Akhand Bharat.'
The All India Sunni Jamiat-e-Ulama, which is leading the Muslim organizations, opposes the proposed amendments on the ground that the Waqf issue is an exclusive concern of the Muslims and hence, there is no justification for governmental interference in the matter. Similarly, the Indian Muslim for Civil Rights expressed its opposition to the Bill; its president, former MP Mohammad Adeeb, has condemned it as "illegal" because the government was interfering in the religious affairs of the Muslims.
In the very first meeting of the JPC on the Waqf Bill, Opposition members said the Bill impinged upon the freedoms of expression, religious freedom, and equality while raising questions over several provisions in the proposed law.
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