A Bengal government order to upload details of the state’s waqf properties onto a new central government portal has triggered a political slugfest, the state having earlier said it would not implement the amended Waqf Act that came into force in April.
The BJP tom-tommed Mamata Banerjee’s “acceptance” of the central Act after publicly opposing it. Senior BJP leaders held the chief minister responsible for the April communal violence in Samserganj, Murshidabad, arising from a protest against the amendment.
“Will Mamata Banerjee apologise to Hindus in Mothabari (Malda) where 68 shops belonging to them were vandalised?” leader of the Opposition Suvendu Adhikari said.
“Haragobinda Das and Chandan Das (father and son slain in Samserganj) were killed because Mamata Banerjee instigated people against the Waqf Amendment Act. Can you compensate those families?”
A source said the state minority affairs and madrasa education department had on Thursday evening issued an order to all district magistrates to immediately have the details of waqf properties uploaded on the central portal. The order emphasised a December 5 deadline.
Bengal is home to around 82,000 waqf properties under nearly 8,000 waqf estates.
The uploading — to the Centre’s Umeed (Unified Waqf Management, Empowerment, Efficiency and Development) portal — is to be done by the muttawallis (managers of waqf estates).
A minority affairs department official underlined that the order had been issued after the Supreme Court stayed certain provisions of the amended Waqf Act that imposed stringent conditions on making waqf endowments, made it easier to declare a property non-waqf, and allowed waqf panels to be stacked with non-Muslims.
“The Supreme Court on September 15 stayed certain provisions of the Act, but the rules framed under it were allowed by the apex court,” the official said.
“As the rules say that details of the property should be uploaded to the central portal by December 6, the state government is encouraging the caretakers to complete this by December 5.”
The official said the state’s directive was aimed at avoiding legal complications in future.
Suvendu used the issue to try and bait Muslims.
“I want to tell the Muslim community that if you are really against the (amended) Waqf Act, boycott Mamata Banerjee. If you don’t, it will be proved that your movement was never against the Waqf Amendment Act — it was against those poor Hindus.”
Another official said that uploading the details of waqf properties onto a central website was nothing new.
“The 80,000-odd waqf properties in Bengal were already listed in the previous central portal, Wamsi, till 2023-24. So there shouldn’t be any problem with uploading the details to the new portal,” he said.
Trinamool said that uploading the waqf property details was necessary to protect these assets from falling into the hands of private players.
“The BJP wants to sell off waqf properties to its crony private players like Adani and Ambani. Our stance against the (amended) Waqf Act has not changed,” party spokesperson Arup Chakraborty said.
Chakraborty said: “Uploading the data of undisputed properties onto the central portal is important for the purpose of keeping proper records. Otherwise, they would sell everything to the Adanis and Ambanis.”
After the amended Act came into force on April 8 this year, Mamata and her party had described it as a move to snatch minority rights. The chief minister had repeatedly declared that it would not be implemented in Bengal and urged minorities to keep faith in her.
Bengal witnessed large-scale protests against the amended Act, some of them accompanied by violence such as the riots in Samserganj.
State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya targeted
Mamata.
“You have now accepted
the amended Waqf Act. Then why did you protest earlier, resulting in massive damage to government property and the loss of Hindu lives and livelihood? Who will take responsibility?”
he said.
“You once said that perpetrators must pay compensation for damaging government property. Now will you collect compensation from those instigators? Mamata Banerjee and her party must
answer this.”
The CPM said the Mamata government’s move proved that it toes the RSS line.
“It’s proved that Mamata Banerjee and her party follow the line set by the RSS…. It’s finally exposed that she cannot protect their (minorities’) interests,” CPM central committee member Sujan Chakraborty said.
“Then why had she said she would not allow the implementation of the (amended) Waqf Act?”