New Delhi, June 7: The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has opposed the Centre’s recent move to amend the wakf act, dismaying the Congress which was banking on Muslim votes in the coming Bihar and Uttar Pradesh polls.

What can hurt the Congress most is the board’s argument that the amendment will weaken the Muslims’ case in the 60-year-old suit over the ownership of the land on which the Babri Masjid stood.

The amendment makes registration of wakf properties mandatory. The board claims the Babri Masjid was not registered, and that the amendment would demolish the Muslims’ contention in the title suit in Allahabad High Court.

The board says the Centre used a “pliable” minority affairs minister, Salman Khursheed, to push an anti-Muslim legislation that has been passed by the Lok Sabha and awaits Rajya Sabha clearance.

Sources, however, say the minority affairs ministry has found out that the Babri Masjid plot had indeed been registered in Faizabad. The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Wakf Board has told the Centre the mosque was registered under Section 37 of the Muslim Wakf Act.

But the law board argues that the courts do not accept this registration. The sources said this was because the court was still hearing the title suit, and any decision on the registration could come only as part of the verdict.

The law board, however, decided at its executive meeting yesterday to take the matter up with the Centre and the Congress. Even the Muslim Majlis-e-Mushawarat described the amendment as the Congress’s “most dangerous act”. Some Muslim leaders feel the amended law would rob the community of many wakf properties.

Some Congress leaders, however, suggested the propaganda had been engineered by a party lobby that wants Khursheed out of the minority affairs ministry.

Law board members have also alleged the Centre deliberately rushed the amendment through on the last day of the budget session, a Friday, when most Lok Sabha members, especially Muslims, were absent.

However, 13 MPs, eight of them Muslim, had participated in the debate with none opposing the amendments. The 13 included MPs from the Congress, BJP, Samajwadi, RJD, BJD, BSP, CPM and CPI and Independents. The amendments were based on inputs from a joint parliamentary panel.