STATE TIMES NEWS
New Delhi: BJP on Friday batted for uniform civil code in the wake of the government asking the Law Commission to examine the issue with the party saying that it has been opposed due to vote bank politics despite finding a mention in the Constitution.
“There should be an open debate over it. The Constitution calls for it and those who oppose it only shows their intolerance to the Constitution. We have always advocated it.
There should be uniform civil code. It has been opposed due to vote bank politics,” party’s National Secretary Shrikant Sharma said.
Implementation of a uniform civil code has long been a core principle of the party and the Sangh Parivar but it, besides other contentious demands like scrapping Article 370 and building Ram temple, was kept out of the first NDA government’s agenda.
The Modi government has asked the Law Commission to examine the issue of uniform civil code.
Implementation of a uniform civil code is one of the core issues of BJP and the Sangh Parivar but the NDA government in 19998 and 1999 and the current dispensation headed by Narendra Modi have put the contentious issues like scrapping of Article 370 and construction of Ram temple on the back burner.
All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen’s Asaduddin Owaisi dubbed the decision of the government as a move to turn the nation into a “Hindu Rashtra”.
“I challenge the government to impose total prohibition.
If the government is serious about the civil code, it should withdraw the tax rebate extended to Hindu Undivided Families in the next session of Parliament,” he said.
He claimed that the government is diverting the attention of the people as it has failed to provide employment and fuel the growth of the economy.
Shaista Amber, who had been fighting for the cause of Muslim women, said the Commission should hold wider consultations before reaching at a conclusion.
But senior advocate K T S Tulsi said the issue of a common civil code is related to equal rights for both men and women as enshrined in the Constitution.
He wondered why only men have the right to give a triple talaq. “That right should be with Muslim women also,” he said.
Law Minister D V Sadananda Gowda had earlier said that the issue could be referred to the Law Commission for examination.
Gowda had said “wider consultations” will be held with various personal law boards and other stakeholders to evolve a consensus and the process may take some time.
“…Even the Preamble of our Constitution and Article 44 of the Constitution do say that there should be a Uniform Civil Code…it needs to have a wider consultation,” he had said.
PTI
