High drama as Opposition leaders walk out of joint meeting on Waqf Bill

Several Opposition MPs, including including Sanjay Singh, Kalyan Banerjee, Gaurav Gogoi, A Raja, Mohamed Abdulla and Arvind Sawant, on Tuesday walked out of a meeting of the joint committee on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, alleging derogatory remarks against them by a Bharatiya Janata Party member, news agency PTI reported.
The Opposition members stormed out of the meeting of the parliamentary panel, which was hearing a presentation from representatives of the ministry of minority affairs on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill.
The opposition members rejoined the meeting after staying away for nearly one hour. However, BJP members claimed that the opposition members were abusing the chairman of the committee Jagadambika Pal.
This is the second consecutive day when opposition members have walked out of the meeting following differences.
On Monday, several Opposition MPs boycotted the meeting alleging that the panel was not functioning in accordance with rules, after Congress president Mallikarjun 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, PTI reported. Manippady, they said, also made an appeal to Muslims not to oppose the Bill, which too was out of line.
An opposition MP said allegations cannot be levelled against someone who is not there to defend himself.
The chairperson of the committee, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jagdambika Pal, however, overruled their objections and allowed the deposition to continue.
Mehmood Madani of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind also appeared before the committee. His organisation has been opposed to the proposed amendments in the Waqf Bill.
(With inputs from PTI)