Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Tuesday expressed his strong opposition to the Waqf (Amendment) Bill and accused them of interfering with everything to get control of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Yadav said, “We are against the Waqf Board Bill because the BJP wants to intervene in everything. They want control everywhere.”
On supporting the Waqf (Amendment) Bill by Ajmer Dargah, Akhilesh Yadav said that the BJP is behind it. He said, “The BJP can get anything told to anyone, can make anyone get anything, this is their quality.”
Syed Nasruddin Chishti, the chairman of the All India Sufi Sajjadanshin Parishad (AISSC) and the successor of the spiritual head of Ajmer Dargah, expressed support for the improvement in the Waqf Board and urged the Muslim community not to influence the “emotional stimulating statements” against the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, and trust the official statements of the Act.
The AISSC president told ANI, “I believe the current Waqf Act needs a change and Muslims do not need to be afraid of it. When the government itself is saying in Parliament that it is not against the community and mosques, dargahs will not be occupied, we should only believe in official statements.”
The chairman of the council told ANI that the government had already clarified that the dargahs, mosques under the Waqf Board will not be confiscated, which people should believe and hope that the bill will be good after the change is sent to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).
Chishti said, “He had expressed his intention while presenting the Waqf (Amendment) Bill that the government is bringing it and sent it to the JPC. The JPC listened patiently to all the parties and sent a report to the government. Hopefully the bill will be good, it should be discussed and a good bill will be passed.”
Meanwhile, Congress MP and Waqf Amendment Bill JPC member Imran Masood accused Syed Naseeruddin Chishti of being a “broker” for Bangladesh.
On Syed Naseeruddin Chishti’s statement, Masood said, “He is a BJP broker.”
The Waqf (Amendment) Bill, also called the ‘Integrated Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development (UMED) Bill’, is aimed to resolve major challenges by applying improvements such as digitization, advanced audit, better transparency and legal system to rectify illegal occupation assets.
The Waqf Act 1995, created to regulate Waqf properties, has been criticized for issues such as mismanagement, corruption and encroachment for a long time.
