Patna: Protests against the Waqf Bill rocked Bihar on Wednesday, from the legislature to the streets, as political parties within the state and outside stood in solidarity with the All India India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), which organised a ‘maha dharna’ here.
The AIMPLB demonstrations were held barely a kilometre away from the Vidhan Sabha premises, to demand rollback of the Bill brought by the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, and to request “secular” leaders like Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to reconsider “support” to the contentious legislation.
Leader of Opposition Tejashwi Yadav turned up shortly after ruckus created on the issue by his colleagues in the RJD and allies like the CPI(ML) had forced adjournment of the assembly within minutes of commencement of proceedings.
Yadav was accompanied by his father Lalu Prasad, the RJD president who chose not to speak owing to bad health.
The young RJD leader assured the gathering that he had the same “blood flowing in the veins” as of the former Bihar CM, who had famously stopped the Ayodhya Rath Yatra in its tracks by getting BJP patriarch L K Advani arrested.
Earlier, BJP MLA Hari Bhushan Thakur Bachaul had claimed that the Bill attacked the Waqf Boards’ “extra constitutional” character, and advised the RJD to worry about the fate of Yadav with the assertion that its ally Congress has “refused” to accept him as chief ministerial candidate for the assembly polls, due later this year.
Yadav asserted that his party will oppose tooth and nail the Bill that was “unconstitutional”, “dictatorial” and inspired by the ideology of the RSS (“Nagpuriya”).
The ‘maha dharna’ was also attended by leaders from outside the state like Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar Azad alias Ravan and Indian Union Muslim League MP, E T Mohammad Basheer.
Ravan, who is an MP from the adjoining Uttar Pradesh, told reporters “after attacking the Waqf, the Modi government is now distributing Eid kits among Muslims. It is like offering spectacles after taking one’s eyes away”.
Basheer, elected to Lok Sabha from far off Kerala, wrote on X: “Representing IUML, I joined the AIMPLB-led protest in Patna against the Centre’s Waqf Amendment Bill”.
“Despite widespread opposition, the govt is pushing it forward. This is a wake-up call for authorities. I assured IUML will always be at the forefront of this fight,” added Basheer.
CPI(ML) legislature party leader in Bihar, Mehboob Alam, likened the Bill, in his speech at the ‘maha dharna’, to “targeting of Jews by Hitler in a bid to gain popularity among people of other faiths”.
AIMIM MLA Akhtarul Iman, who heads the state unit of the party, alleged that “we are already being targeted for practices like sporting a beard and a skullcap. The Waqf Bill has been brought so that even the dead are not spared and bulldozers are unleashed on our graveyards”.
Another prominent attendee at the ‘maha dharna’ was Jan Suraaj Party founder Prashant Kishor, who has been trying to woo the minority community with the promise of a sizeable number of tickets in the Bihar assembly elections.
Kishor has also been asserting that if the Waqf Bill was passed, the blame shall be shared by Nitish Kumar, who heads the JD(U), without support of which the BJP cannot survive in power at the Centre.
The Jan Suraaj Party leader, whose differences with Kumar over the CAA-NRC controversy had led to his expulsion from the JD(U) five years ago, chose not to speak at the ‘maha dharna’.
