Some of the Opposition MPs who are part of the joint parliamentary committee that examined the contentious waqf amendment bill have alleged that large portions of their dissent notes have been censored in the final report submitted to the Lok Sabha Speaker.

AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi and Congress’s Naseer Hussain posted on X copies of their original dissent notes alongside the portions redacted in the final report, expressing shock over the move. The dissent note submitted by Trinamool Congress MPs Kalyan Banerjee and Nadimul Haque were also learnt to have been censored.

The JPC headed by BJP MP Jagdambika Pal is scheduled to table the over 900-page report on the waqf amendment bill in the Lok Sabha on Monday. Pal, who was busy campaigning for his party in Delhi, could not be contacted for his comments on the charges levelled by the two key Opposition members inthe panel.

“I’d submitted a detailed dissent note to the JPC against the Waqf Amendment Bill. It’s shocking that parts of my note were redacted without my knowledge. The deleted sections were not controversial; they only stated facts,” Owaisi posted on X on Friday.

Addressing Pal, Owaisi asked: “The Chairman @jagdambikapalmp got the report he wanted, but why stifle the opposition’s voice?”

Owaisi accused Pal of misusing a rule to censor his dissent note. “Since he (Pal) misused a rule to alter my report, I will soon release my complete dissent note for the public to read,” he said, posting images of his original dissent note alongside the sections redacted in thefinal report.

“Please compare the redacted and the original versions of my notes. What’s so objectionable?” Owaisi said.

The JPC meetings on the waqf bill had been stormy with the Opposition members of the panel repeatedly accusing the chairman of steamrolling the proceedings by overruling objections. The JPC had rejected hundreds of amendments proposed by the Opposition members but had accepted all the 14 changes proposed by BJP members on the panel.

“The Joint Committee on Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, was already reduced to a farce, but now they’ve stooped even lower — censoring dissenting voices of Opposition MPs! What are they so scared of? Why this attempt to silence us?” Congress MP Naseer Hussain posted on X, attaching the redacted and original versions of his dissent note.