Waqf Bill clears Lok Sabha storm: Govt cites transparency, Opposition says bid to divide on faith

“We are not scaring the Muslims, you are scaring the Muslims. I am saying that no citizen of this country, irrespective of religion, will be harmed,” he said and accused the Opposition of spreading “misconceptions” and “rumours” for their vote bank politics.

Both Shah and Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, who spoke at the beginning of the debate and replied to it before the voting, said the proposed reforms would ensure the welfare of poor Muslims and women.

“An illusion is being created that this Act is about interference in the religious activities of Muslim brothers and in their donated property… This is being done (by the Opposition) to create their vote bank by scaring the minorities,” Shah said.

He listed several cases of claims being made by waqf boards on various lands and said “this Bill will provide protection to the lands… No one’s land will become waqf by a mere declaration… We will give protection to ASI land, land of tribals under Schedule 5 and Schedule 6 will be secured… private property of common citizens will also be protected… you will need ownership to donate to waqf… you can only donate your property, not the property of the village.”

Although he did not take part in the discussion, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi, in a post on X, said the Bill is a weapon aimed at marginalising Muslims and usurping their personal laws and property rights. “This attack on the Constitution by the RSS, BJP and their allies is aimed at Muslims today but sets a precedent to target other communities in the future. The Congress strongly opposes this legislation as it attacks the very idea of India and violates Article 25, the Right to Freedom of Religion,” he said.

Making an intervention during the debate, Shah said non-Muslims in the waqf council and boards are meant purely for ensuring administration of properties in accordance with stated aims. “There will be no non-Islamic members in the waqf. Understand this clearly. Neither the ‘mutawalli’ will be non-Islamic nor the waqif will be non-Islamic. There is no provision for keeping a non-Muslim person in the religious institutions that are run. We do not even want to do it,” he said.

He attacked “those who give big speeches that the right to equality is gone, that there is no equality between the two religions, that there will be interference in the religious rights of the Muslims”.

“Where will non-Muslim members be… In the council and in the board. What is their job? Their job is not to run religious activities. It is purely the job of the council to regulate… to see whether the administration of the property donated by someone is running well or not, whether it is running according to the law or not, or whether the donation was given for the purpose of Islam… Is it being used for that purpose or not?” he said.

Listing instances of “irregularities”, Shah said the UPA government had made waqf law “extreme” in 2013 for “appeasement” ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Had the law not been tweaked then, the need for the present Bill might not have arisen, he said.

“From 1913 to 2013, the total land belonging to the waqf board was 18 lakh acres. From 2013 to 2025… after the (2013) law was enacted… 21 lakh more acres of land became waqf property. Properties under lease were 20,000 and in 2025 as per the records, it became zero… Where did the properties go? Were they sold? With whose permission?” he said.

“They are saying don’t look into all this… This money belongs to the poor Muslims of the country, this is not for theft by some money lenders. This has to be stopped… and their contractors sitting here, they talk loudly… They (the Opposition) feel they will gain the sympathy of Muslims and strengthen their vote bank by opposing the Bill. You will not gain anything,” Shah said.

“I want to clarify that the government does not want to interfere in waqf,” he said.

BJP members accused the Opposition of minority appeasement, going against the Constitution, and allowing large-scale corruption in the name of waqf properties.

Rijiju, who tabled the Bill, said, “We have allowed Shia, Sunni, backward Muslims, women and expert non-Muslims to be part of the Waqf Board…. There can be four non-Muslims in it. And there have to be two women. Look at the Waqf Boards until now. Where are the women?”

Shah and Rijiju said the UPA government handed over 123 properties in Delhi to the Waqf Board just before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections to serve its “vote bank politics” – a statement that Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi called misleading when he spoke just after the minister.

“In 2013, it was provided that any person, of any religion, could create a waqf. This diluted the original Act. Then it was provided that there could be only Shias in Shia Waqf Board and only Sunnis in Sunni Waqf Board. One provision was brought under Section 108 that the Waqf Board would override any law of the land. How is this acceptable?” Rijiju said.

“Cases were going on since 1970. The CGO complex, etc., were claimed by the Waqf Board. The UPA government denotified 123 properties and gave them to the Waqf Board. Even the Parliament building where we are sitting was being claimed. Had the Modi government not come to power, all these would have been given away,” he said.

Dismissing the charge that the Centre was interfering in Muslim religious practices, Rijiju said, “The government is not interfering in any religious practice or institution. There is no provision in this to interfere in the management of any mosque. This is simply an issue of management of a property.”

He cited court judgments to make the point that management of waqf properties was a secular act not dealing with religion.

In his reply later, Rijiju rejected the Opposition charge that the Bill was “unconstitutional”. He said the removal of the provision “waqf by user” was not against the Muslim religion and was done thoughtfully to bring down disputes arising out of inadequate documentation.

BJP’s Anurag Thakur said many Christian and Muslim organisations had also supported the Bill. It was time to change the waqf, he said, claiming that it had become a hub of corruption. “Khaata na bahee, jo Waqf kahe wahi sahi (No book of accounts, whatever the waqf says is correct) was the way Congress ran the waqf boards,” Thakur said.

Supporting the Bill, former Union Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said, “The Waqf Board is not a religious body; it is just a statutory body. The mutawalli is just a manager. I will quote from M Hidayatullah, a legal luminary, to prove this. As per him, the mutawalli is just a manager. So, should the Centre be quiet when such misuse is happening?”

“I want to ask how many schools and hospitals were built on Waqf property? How many orphanages were made? If good funding comes due to this (to be passed) Act, why do they have a problem? They have a problem because of politics. They also created a ruckus after the Shah Bano judgment of the Supreme Court… Rajiv Gandhi reversed the Shah Bano verdict through Parliament,” Prasad said, accusing the Congress of minority appeasement.