A meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Waqf Bill continued to witness disruption as the Opposition MPs walked out on Tuesday. A similar dramatic scene was created by the members of the committee on Monday as well. A ruckus took place when the parliamentary panel was hearing a presentation from representatives of the Ministry of Minority Affairs on the bill.
Demand for removal of JPC chairman Jagdambika Pal
Yesterday, a BJP leader alleged that Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has also usurped the land of Waqf Board. Today, the Opposition MPs accused BJP MP Nishikant Dubey of using abusive language for TMC MP, prompting a ruckus in the JPC meeting. The Opposition MPs staged a protest during the meeting, alleging derogatory remarks against them by the BJP MP.
Opposition members, including Kalyan Banerjee, Gaurav Gogoi, A Raja, Mohamed Abdulla and Arvind Sawant, stormed out of the meeting. The Opposition members rejoined the meeting after staying away for nearly one hour. However, BJP members made a counterclaim, saying that the Opposition members were abusing the chairman of the committee Jagadambika Pal.
This is the second consecutive day when the Opposition members walked out of the meeting following differences. Earlier on Monday, several opposition MPs on Monday boycotted a meeting of the parliamentary committee meeting alleging that the panel is not functioning in accordance with rules, after Kharge was accused by a deposer of being involved in Waqf land scams.
The lengthy meetings of the Joint Committee of Parliament have been marked by the exchange of heated words between its BJP and opposition members, and things turned especially stormy on Monday as the latter questioned the rationale behind calling members of Hindu groups for deposition on a law concerning Muslims.
The opposition MPs walked out in protest against the submission of Anwar Manippady, a former chairman of the Karnataka State Minorities Commission and the Karnataka Minorities Development Corporation. He is also a former Karnataka BJP vice-president. Manippady named several Congress leaders from Karnataka, including Kharge and Rehman Khan, and others for their alleged involvement in embezzling Waqf properties.
The Opposition MPs cited rules regulating the parliamentary committees' proceedings to claim that "unproven allegations" against "high dignitaries" cannot be made at the meetings of these panels.
(With PTI inputs)
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