Cong will follow ‘all democratic routes’ to oppose Waqf bill

New Delhi: Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh on Friday said his party will follow “all democratic routes” to oppose the Waqf (Amendment) Bill when it comes up for passage in Parliament and asserted that the INDIA bloc is against the “content, intent and extent” of the proposed legislation.

Ahead of the start of the second half of the Budget session, he said there will be “extensive consultation” among INDIA bloc parties to jointly oppose the bill and the leaders of opposition in both Houses of Parliament will coordinate with INDIA parties on the issue soon.

In an interview with PTI, Ramesh also said the Congress will also keep raising the issue of irregularities in the election process, alleging that elections are “no longer free and fair” and are being “masterminded and orchestrated”.

He said the Waqf (Amendment) Bill will probably come in the second half of the Budget session and that “there is absolutely no doubt” that the Congress is going to oppose the bill and so will many other political parties. “I think the entire political spectrum of the INDIA political parties are opposed to the content, intent and extent of the bill. The manner in which the bill was bulldozed through made a mockery of Parliament’s joint committee process,” he alleged.

“The Waqf (Amendment) bill is controversial and it is going to be opposed lock, stock and barrel,” the Congress’ general secretary in-charge communications said. He asserted that the Congress will oppose the bill “tooth, nail and hammer” because it was the most unnecessary and the manner in which Parliament’s joint committee functioned was “undemocratic”.

“Some witnesses were called selectively, some witnesses were not called. Most importantly perhaps for the first time in parliamentary history a joint committee had submitted a report on a bill without a clause-by-clause discussion on the bill,” Ramesh said. Ramesh said he had been a member of the JPC on the data protection bill that was chaired by a BJP MP but in spite of that a clause-by-clause discussion was done.

The Congress is in touch with INDIA bloc parties and Leader of Opposition and Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as well as LoP in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi will in the next couple of days be talking to all opposition leaders, he said. “On this, all opposition parties are united. Privately even the TDP and the JDU MPs are very uneasy with the bill but they have their compulsions. They seem to have gone along because they were browbeaten by the BJP to support this bill,” he claimed. Ramesh said he does not know what JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar and TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu would do but there “real face will be revealed”.