‘BJP and JDU standing with Samajwad, RJD and SP are with Namazwad': BJP hits out at Tejashwi over anti-Waqf protest

Indian Express

8 hours ago

Equating the Emergency and its disregard for the Constitution with the INDIA bloc's opposition to the Waqf Act, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Monday attacked the Congress-RJD-Samajwadi Party combine in Bihar for standing with 'Namazwad' instead of remaining true to the ideological tenets of Socialism.
Indicating that its focus was gradually shifting to the poll-bound Bihar, BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said it was the BJP-led NDA alliance, which, with its ally the Janata Dal(United), was truly standing with the socialist principle of equal distribution of wealth.
Trivedi's comments came a day after former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav said the INDIA government in the state would relegate the Waqf Act to the dustbin after coming to power. Yadav was speaking at a protest organised against the Act by the Imarat-e-Shariah, a Muslim organisation, at Gandhi Maidan in Patna Sunday.
'We have recently commemorated 50 years of the blackest chapter in the history of the country's democracy, that the Emergency was. It is saddening that in the same Gandhi Maidan where during the Emergency lakhs had gathered to protect the Constitution, an INDI alliance leader, Tejashwi Yadav, said that we will throw a law which has been ratified by Parliament into the dustbin,' Trivedi said at a press conference.
'They will neither respect Parliament nor the judiciary when it comes to their need for a vote bank… It is clear that the INDI alliance is unable to get out of the 50-year-old mindset of throwing the Constitution in the dustbin,' he added.
The BJP and the National Democratic Alliance, Trivedi said, were, on the other hand, committed to stopping any such attack on B R Ambedkar's Constitution or its provisions.
He also questioned whether the provisions of the Waqf Act, which the INDIA bloc and its leaders were against, existed in Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, where Islam was born, or Indonesia which was the largest Islamic nation or others including Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh or even ISIS-dominated parts of Syria and Iraq.
'I want to ask the INDI alliance — are you thinking of establishing a bigger Shariah law in Bihar (than these countries)? Parties wearing the cloak of Socialism, such as the RJD and Samajwadi Party, I want to ask them, is equal distribution of wealth not what it says? What you are saying is that a handful of people should have control over 39 lakh acres of land,' he alleged.
'This mentality is against the principles of socialism… The socialism of the RJD and SP cannot be called that, but what is being called 'namazwad' on social media… Today it is we (the NDA) who are standing with the socialism of Bharat Ratna Karpoori Thakur, Jaiprakash Narayan and (Ram Manohar) Lohia by seeking that each poor gets their due… Today, it is the BJP and JDU who are standing with Samajwad while the RJD and SP are with Namazwad,' he added.
It was through granting minority status to institutions, Trivedi alleged, that the INDIA bloc sought to snatch reservation from those belonging to the SC/ST/OBC communities 'through the backdoor.'
'We will not let these people succeed in their aim, the land that belongs to the people of the country will remain theirs…the country will function according to Ambedkar's Constitution and not the provisions of Shariah,' he added.