Metro India News | Hyderabad 

Union Minister G Kishan Reddy on Thursday said the BJP had earlier promised to amend the Waqf Act and took steps to benefit the poor Muslims. He said the Waqf Amendment Bill was recently introduced in Parliament session and was made into a law.

Addressing at ‘Waqf Sudhar Janajagarana Abhiyan’ workshop BJP State office, he said the Central Government had constituted a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) in August 2024 to draft this bill and added that the Committee toured about 25 States and collected the opinions of more than one crore intellectuals and people and added that a report was submitted based on the suggestions given by the committee and a discussion was held in Parliament for 21 hours.

Referring to the comments of MP Asaduddin Owaisi and Congress leaders, he made it clear that the Waqf Amendment Act was not against any community. ‘As promised earlier, after the abrogation of Article 370, we implemented the Babasaheb Ambedkar Constitution in Jammu and Kashmir. Peace has prevailed. We brought the Waqf Amendment Act in the interest of poor Muslims in the country. The Waqf Act, which was introduced during British rule, was reintroduced in 1954. Further changes were made to it in 1995.

However, in 2013, the UPA government made changes to the Waqf Act by misleading the people for vote bank politics. The powers of the Waqf Board were expanded indefinitely and allowed the possibility of unilateral acquisition of the lands. After the Railways and Defense Departments, the largest amount of land bank in the country is under the jurisdiction of the Waqf Board. But the income from those lands did not benefit poor Muslims,’ he said. He alleged that the Waqf Board benefited only the Majlis party leaders, religious leaders, land grabbers, and real estate companies.