Waqf law retaliation in guise of reform: Congress

NEW DELHI: Calling the new waqf law BJP's message that "institutions of minorities are fair game", Congress on Thursday said that the legal challenge was not about Muslims but about a constitutional principle like Article 26, whose absence can threaten other communities as well.

Senior lawyer and AICC spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi told a press conference that waqf law was a retaliation in the guise of reform that hurts religious freedom of the minority community by redrawing its rights with a bureaucratic pen. He singled out Clauses 9 and 14 of the said law as particularly offensive and legally unsustainable. "The law is about infiltrating institutions and closing them. You can't amputate Article 26 (freedom to manage religious affairs) and call it administrative efficiency. It is an assault on their identity and autonomy, and on constitutional values," he added.

Singhvi likened the justification of waqf law by citing individual instances of violations to PM Modi's "mangalsutra" speeches during the Lok Sabha elections - "these are deliberate acts to misinform and to prejudice the minds to create hate".

"It's a substantive legal challenge, and these are not some whimsical frivolous petitions," he said about the pleas in SC. "We are not here to defend one community, but to defend a constitutional principle, that rights like Article 26 cannot be sacrificed at the altar of majoritarian impulses."