NEW DELHI: The Opposition staged a walkout from the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, alleging that the government had deliberately removed dissenting notes from the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) report on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill. The move triggered a heated exchange in the House, with the BJP and Opposition members locking horns over the issue.
Leader of Opposition and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge led the charge, accusing the government of sidelining opposing views in an attempt to push the report through.
“In the JPC report on the Waqf Board, many members have their dissent report… It is not right to remove those notes and bulldoze our views… This is anti-democracy… I condemn any report that has been presented after deleting the dissent reports. We will never accept such fake reports… If the report does not have dissent views, it should be sent back and presented again,” Kharge said in the Upper House.
Meanwhile, union minister Kiren Rijiju dismissed the allegations, asserting that no dissenting notes had been removed.
“I have checked the concerns raised by the Opposition. There is no deletion or removal from the report. Everything is on the floor of the House. On what basis can such an issue be raised? The members of the Opposition are creating an unnecessary issue, which is not a fact. The allegation is false. The JPC conducted entire proceedings as per the rules… All the Opposition members of the JPC participated in all the proceedings in the last six months… All the dissent notes are attached in the appendix of the report… They cannot mislead the House,” Rijiju said.
The uproar erupted after BJP MP Medha Vishram Kulkarni tabled the report, prompting strong protests from the Opposition. As the ruckus escalated, Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar urged members to maintain decorum while attempting to read out a message from the President.
“Don’t show disrespect to the President of India…” Dhankhar said, appealing to Kharge to rein in the Opposition members. However, as the commotion persisted, the House was briefly adjourned until 11:20 am.
Meanwhile, on JPC report on the Waqf Bill, committee member and AIMIM Chief Asaduddin Owaisi said, “Today, a group of Lok Sabha MPs, which included A Raja, Kalyan Banerjee, Imran Masood, Mohammad Jawed, Gaurav Gogoi, and me, went to meet the Speaker. We told him that many pages and paragraphs of our dissent notes have been redacted from the JPC report. He was kind enough to ask the Secretary-General to include from our dissent notes whatever the rules permitted … Later, we sat in the Parliamentary library and included most of the redacted pages in the report, which will be presented in the Lok Sabha at 2 pm… The paragraphs that expressed aspersions on the working of the committee were not included since they were against the rules…”
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Arvind Sawant also raised concerns about the JPC proceedings, claiming that clause-by-clause discussions had not been conducted as required.
“The committee was formed to discuss the clause-by-clause provisions made in the Bill… The JPC chairman should be asked if the answers given by the witnesses were given to the JPC members. No, they were not. Clause-by-clause discussions were never held in the meetings of the JPC. Because of this, we gave a dissent note. They have removed the dissent note we gave. We are against the Waqf report to be tabled today,” Sawant said.
BJP MP Aparajita Sarangi, meanwhile, defended the report, highlighting the need for better management of Waqf properties.
“All the Waqf properties spread across the country should be managed well. That’s the ultimate goal. The caretaker of the Waqf properties should get more income… We have to say ‘no’ to the encroachment of these Waqf properties… All the dissent notes of all the Opposition party members have been appropriately incorporated… I am very confident that the bill will be passed by both houses. Tabling the bill is not a full stop to the whole exercise… For every action of PM Narendra Modi, there is an equal and opposite negative reaction by the Opposition, which is unfortunate…,” she said.
