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Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey on Sunday called former Chief Election Commissioner SY Quraishi a “Muslim commissioner” in response to remarks about the recently-passed Waqf Amendment Act.
On Thursday, Quraishi said that the Waqf Amendment Act was “undoubtedly a blatantly sinister/evil plan of the govt to grab Muslim lands”.
“I’m sure SC [Supreme Court] will call it out,” the former chief election commissioner said on social media. “Misinformation by the mischievous propaganda machine has done its job well.”
The remarks came amid the Supreme Court hearing the challenges to the Act.
In response to the remarks, Dubey on Sunday accused Quraishi of communal bias during his tenure as the former chief election commissioner.
“You were not an election commissioner, you were a Muslim commissioner,” the BJP MP said on social media. “The maximum number of Bangladeshi infiltrators were made voters in Santhal Pargana in Jharkhand during your tenure.”
He added: “Prophet Muhammad’s Islam came to India in 712. This land [waqf], before that, belonged to Hindus or tribals, Jains or Buddhists associated with that faith.”
A waqf is an endowment under Islamic law dedicated to a religious, educational or charitable cause. Each state has a waqf board led by a legal entity vested with the power to acquire, hold and transfer property.
The bill was cleared by Parliament on April 4. It received presidential assent on April 5 and took effect on April 8. The Congress and the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, among others, have challenged the constitutionality of the bill in the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, the Union government told the Supreme Court that some provisions of the contentious Waqf Amendment Act, such as the denotification of existing waqf properties, will not be enacted until the court hears the matter again.
This came a day after the bench proposed to stay some of the amended Act’s provisions, including the inclusion of non-Muslims in waqf boards and the denotification of properties declared as waqf by courts.
Responding to Dubey’s remarks, Quraishi told PTI on Monday that for some persons, religious identities were a “staple to forward their hateful politics”.
“I believe in an idea of India where an individual is defined by his or her talents and contributions and not by their religious identities,” Quraishi was quoted as saying.
Dubey’s remarks about Quraishi on Sunday came a day after the BJP MP said that the Supreme Court was responsible for “inciting religious wars” in the country.
In an interview to ANI on Saturday, Dubey said that the top court was “going beyond its limits”.
He added: “If one has to go to the Supreme Court for everything, then Parliament and state Assembly should be shut…”
Dubey cited the court’s decisions to decriminalise homosexuality in 2018 and the striking down of section 66(a) of the Information Technology Act in 2021.
The MP from Jharkhand’s Godda claimed that the court had decriminalised homosexuality despite “all [religious] communities considering it wrong”. He also claimed that section 66(a) of the IT Act was necessary to stop the misuse of online platforms to share objectionable content.
Dubey also questioned how the Supreme Court could issue directives to its appointing authority. “The president appoints the chief justice of India,” he had said on Saturday.
The comment was in reference to the Supreme Court’s April 8 judgement imposing a three-month deadline for the president to approve or reject bills referred by state governors.
“Parliament makes the law of this country,” Dubey said. “You will dictate that Parliament?…How did you make a new law? In which law is it written that the president has to take a decision within three months?”
Dubey made the remark while answering the reporter’s question about his social media post on Saturday morning in which he said that Parliament “should be closed if the Supreme Court makes the law”.
Later in the day, the BJP said that it “completely rejects” the statements made by Dubey.
BJP chief JP Nadda said that he had instructed Dubey, among other party members, not to make such statements. “These are their personal statements, but the BJP neither agrees with such statements nor does it ever support such statements,” Nadda said.
Nadda added that the Hindutva party respected the judiciary and believed that all courts in the country, including the Supreme Court, were an integral part of democracy.
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