Chaos at Waqf meet again

New Delhi: 'Non-Muslim' board official backs bill Chaos erupted again during the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) meeting on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill after the Delhi Waqf Board supported the proposed changes to the legislation, sources said. Delhi Waqf Board administrator IAS Ashwini Kumar backed the Bill even as Opposition MPs called his stand ‘illegal’.

The Opposition said the Delhi Waqf Board administrator was not a Muslim and argued that the law stated that non-Muslims could not be on the Waqf board. A BJP MP pointed out that when Arvind Kejriwal was the Chief Minister, he had appointed a Hindu administrator to the Delhi Waqf Board. The Opposition said the Delhi Waqf Board administrator came with its presentation without approval by the Delhi government, sources said. "He (administrator) should be booked for fraud," certain Opposition MPs demanded.

The Opposition MPs said the Delhi government's representative on the Waqf board should also be allowed to table its presentation to the parliamentary panel. The demand was accepted by the panel's chairperson.

On Monday, the opposition walked out of the meeting in protest against the presentation made by the Delhi Waqf Board. AAP MP Sanjay Singh flagged that the presentation was not vetted by the Delhi government.

The opposition also alleged that the initial report of the Waqf Board was altered without Delhi Chief Minister Atishi’s approval. Atishi had also written a letter to the committee, saying the presentation should be considered as “null and void”. The meeting was also attended by TMC MP Kalyan Banerjee, who was suspended for a day for last week’s unruly conduct. Banerjee had injured his hand after smashing a glass water bottle during the meeting following a heated argument with BJP MP Abhijit Gangopadhyay. On Tuesday, Banerjee said he got angry after Abhijit Gangopadhyay abused him and his parents.

Narrating the sequence of events, Banerjee said, “On that day, there was a hot exchange of words between Congress’s Nasir Hussain and Abhijit Gangopadhyay. I said why was he (Abhijit Gangopadhyay) shouting? Then he started abusing me, my mother, my father and my wife... After the chairperson came, he was harsh towards me but soft towards him. This frustrated me. Then, I smashed the (glass) bottle on the table.” “I never had the intention of throwing the bottle at the chairperson. The chairperson has no power to suspend the members, only the Speaker does. Abhijit Gangopadhyay is a black spot on the judiciary and a rotten man,” he further said.