The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has sought to put the Congress in a political quandary in Kerala regarding the party’s national-level opposition to the contentious Waqf Amendment Bill, 2024.
It has challenged Congress MPs from Kerala to spell out whether they would reject the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council’s (KCBC) counsel to vote to amend the “unfair and anti-constitutional” provisions in the Waqf Act.
National spotlight
High-profile BJP leaders, notably Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju, have nationally spotlighted KCBC chairperson Cardinal Baselious Cleemis’s support for the Bill as an endorsement of the Central government’s political line.
On Saturday, the cardinal argued that some questionable provisions in the Bill had enabled the Waqf Board to “capriciously” claim the land owned by hundreds of Kochi’s Munambam residents, predominantly Christians, as inalienable Waqf property.
On Monday (March 31, 2025), BJP State president Rajiv Chandrasekhar signalled that the party would make the Munambam land issue and the Waqf Bill major talking points in the run-up to the Assembly elections 2026, chiefly as a touchstone of Congress’s commitment to its Christian base, including its Kerala Congress allies.
The KCBC’s qualified support for amending specific provisions of the Waqf Act has debatably come as a fillip for the BJP, which had arguably benefitted from a right-wing drift in Christian votes, especially in the Thrissur Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
The BJP’s gambit appeared to have come at a vexing moment for the Congress’s key ally, the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML).
‘Black armband’ protest
During the Juma prayers last Friday, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board urged Muslims to sport a black armband to register their protest against the Waqf Amendment Bill, which appeared to gain momentum as an emotively galvanising issue for the community.
Muslim social organisations in Kerala have termed the Bill discriminatory and argued that it put vast Waqf properties, including educational institutions, in the risk zone and vulnerable to government control.
A Congress insider said the party leadership in Kerala would use the IUML’s good offices to parley with the Church to achieve an early detente in the Munambam land issue while challenging the “anti-constitutional” Waqf Bill in the Supreme Court.
Published – March 31, 2025 07:12 pm IST