Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav on Monday said his party will oppose the Centre's move to bring a bill in Parliament to amend the 1995 law governing Waqf boards. The former CM accused the BJP of trying to snatch the rights of Muslims.
According to the sources, the amendment bill, which will make it mandatory for Waqf boards to register their properties with district collectors to ensure their actual valuation, is set to be introduced in the Parliament in the current session.
"We will be against it (Waqf act amendment bill)," Yadav told reporters when asked about the proposed amendment. The SP chief, who paied tributes to late MP and party leader Janeshwar Mishra on his birth anniversary in Lucknow, said "BJP's only work is to divide Hindus and Muslims, snatch the rights of Muslim brothers and work on how to snatch the rights given to them in the Constitution."
The SP chief charged that the Modi government had earlier snatched the rights of Anglo-Indians. "Anglo-Indians used to have one seat in the Lok Sabha and one in the Vidhan Sabha. They had their own representation, but they got a fake census done and snatched the seats of Anglo-Indians," he charged.
Akhilesh targets Yogi over land bill
The SP chief also targeted Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath over the Uttar Pradesh Nazul Property (Management and use of public purposes) Bill, 2024 presented by the state government.
"Look how intelligent our chief minister is...He found out that nuzul is an Urdu word. The officers kept explaining to him that nuzul means something else but he said no, nuzul means land of Muslims," Yadav claimed.
"Think about it, this person was getting the whole of Prayagraj and Gorakhpur vacated only because of the Urdu word nuzul. He has some personal interest in Gorakhpur or some of his colleagues have some personal interest," he charged.
The Bill presented by the state government was sent to the select committee in the Upper House (Legislative Council) and could not be passed after some BJP leaders opposed it.
(With PTI inputs)
