BJP MP Jagdambika Pal will chair the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Wakf Amendment Bill, 2024, introduced by the Central government during the monsoon session of the Parliament. The bill was tabled by Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren RIjiju in the Lok Sabha on August 8 and the house held a brief discussion on the proposed amendments. The bill was sent to the JPC for further scrutiny.
The bill seeks to make changes in the Wakf Act under which the 8.5 lakh properties are included. The allies of the BJP – TDP and JDU – extended full support to the bill however, the opposition including the Congress, Samajwadi Party (SP) and AIMIM strongly opposed it.
Notably, the JPC, an ad-hoc Parliamentary Committee, has been constituted with 31 members, 21 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha. In the Lok Sabha, 12 members of the panel are from the ruling NDA, eight of which are from the BJP. Additionally, nine members of the JPC are from the opposition.
The Lok Sabha members in the JPC are Jagdambika Pal (Chairman), Nishikant Dubey, Tejasvi Surya, Aparajita Sarangi, Abhiit Gangopadhyay, Sanjay Jaiswal, Dilip Saikia, DK Aruna. All of these members are from the BJP.
The Members of Congress include Gaurav Gogoi, Imran Masood and Mohammadd Jawed. Mohibullah (Samajwadi Party); Kalyan Banerjee (Trinamool Congress); A Raja (DMK); Lavu Sri Krishnadevaraya (Telugu Desam Party); Dileshwar Kamait (JDU); Arvind Sawant (Shiv Sena-UBT); Suresh Mhatre (NCP-Sharad Pawar); Naresh Mhaske (Shiv Sena); Arun Bharti (Lok Janshakti Party-Ram Vilas); and Asaduddin Owaisi (AIMIM) are other members of the panel.
7In the Rajya Sabha, four members are each from the BJP and the opposition while one is a nominated member. Those included from the Rajya Sabha are Brij Lal (BJP), Medha Vishram Kulkarni (BJP), Gulam Ali (BJP), Radha Mohan Das Agrawal ( BJP); Syed Naseer Hussain (Congress); Mohammed Nadimul Haque (Trinamool Congress); V Vijayasai Reddy (YSRCP); M Mohamed Abdulla (DMK); Sanjay Singh (AAP), and nominated member Dharmasthala Veerendra Heggade.