The Lok Sabha has constituted a joint committee of Parliament to consider the Waqf Amendment Bill. Also, the proposal to nominate 21 members from the lower house and 10 members from the Rajya Sabha was approved on Friday. The 21 members included in this joint committee from the Lok Sabha include 8 MPs from the Bharatiya Janata Party and 3 from the Congress. Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju introduced this proposal in the House which was approved by voice vote. The committee has been asked to submit its report by the last day of the first week of the winter session.
The joint committee includes Jagadambika Pal, Nishikant Dubey, Tejaswi Surya, Aparajita Sarangi, Sanjay Jaiswal, Dilip Saikia, Abhijit Gangopadhyay and DK Aruna from BJP. Gaurav Gogai, Imran Masood and Mohammad Javed from Congress have been made part of this committee. Samajwadi Party member Maulana Mohibullah Nadvi, Trinamool Congress’ Kalyan Banerjee, DMK’s A. Raja, Telugu Desam Party (TDP)’s Lavu Srikrishna, Janata Dal (United)’s Dileshwar Kamat, Shiv Sena (UBT)’s Arvind Sawant, Nationalist Congress Party (SP)’s Suresh Gopinath Mahatre, Shiv Sena’s Naresh Ganpat Mhaske, Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas)’s Arun Bharti and AIMIM’s Asaduddin Owaisi are also included in this committee.
Heated debate between ruling party and opposition
The Lok Sabha has recommended to the Rajya Sabha that it should select 10 members for this joint committee and inform the lower house. The government had introduced a bill related to amendment in the law governing the Waqf Boards in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, which was decided to be sent to the Joint Committee after a heated discussion between the ruling and opposition parties. Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju introduced the Waqf Amendment Bill, 2024 in the House and proposed to send the bill to the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Parliament as per the demand of various parties. On this, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla had said, ‘I will constitute this Joint Parliamentary Committee after talking to the leaders of all the parties.’
Attack on Constitution and Minorities
Opposition members had strongly opposed the bill. They said that it is an attack on the Constitution, federalism and minorities. The major constituents of the National Democratic Alliance, Janata Dal (United), Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Shiv Sena supported the bill. However, TDP had advocated sending it to the parliamentary committee. Rijiju answered the questions raised by the opposition members. He said that the bill does not interfere with anyone’s religious freedom. Also, no article of the Constitution has been violated.
