SC verdict on maintenance to divorced Muslim women ended threat to Constitution: BJP

The BJP Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling that a divorced Muslim woman is entitled to maintenance from her husband, saying the judgement has ended a threat posed to the Constitution by the Rajiv Gandhi government, which had used its Parliamentary majority to overturn the Shah Bano verdict of the apex court.

“Whenever the Congress has been in power, the Constitution was under threat. It (Rajiv Gandhi government’s) was a decision which gave primacy to Sharia over the Constitution. The prestige of the Constitution that was crushed by the Congress government has been restored by this order,” BJP national spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Sudhanshu Trivedi told journalists.

The Congress has over the last few months accused the BJP of looking to change the Constitution. Congress MPs have taken their oaths in Parliament with a copy of the Constitution in hand.

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The BJP’s attack is also part of a counter where the party has accused the Congress of being anti-Constitution, first recalling the Emergency and now recalling the Shah Bano judgement.

Trivedi said the verdict, a relief to Muslim women, should be seen beyond religion as it is a matter of equal rights.