With JPC on Waqf Bill, has BJP stooped to conquer or just stooped?

The shifting sands of political reality post the Lok Sabha poll results in June were all too evident, on Thursday (August 8), as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was compelled to refer the Waqf (Amendment) Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for further scrutiny.

The Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha by Union Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, evoked strong criticism from the Opposition, which alleged that its provisions violated a string of Articles of the Constitution. MPs from various INDIA bloc parties slammed the Centre while objecting to the Bill’s introduction, calling the proposed legislation an “assault against federalism, secularism and the fundamental right to freedom of religion and equality before the law.”

The INDIA bloc’s protests against the Bill, which seeks to make sweeping and controversial amendments to the Waqf Act, 1995 in the name of “reforming” the existent Waqf-related apparatus, was expected. What would not have suited the government was the opposition to the Bill from YS Jaganmohan Reddy’s YSR Congress party and Chandrababu Naidu’s TDP, a crucial NDA constituent, making it known that though it supported the draft legislation, it was also not opposed to it being referred to a parliamentary committee for further scrutiny.

Not a good sign for BJP

The stand by the two Andhra parties would not have augured well for the BJP’s ambition of getting the controversial law passed by Parliament. Over the past decade, the YSRCP had, while not being formally a part of the BJP-led NDA, bailed out the Centre whenever it was short of the required legislative strength to have a key law passed in Parliament. The YSRCP’s stance has, however, changed since the TDP allied with the BJP, stormed to power in Andhra with Naidu replacing Reddy as the CM and made a near clean sweep in the Lok Sabha polls in the state.

The support of TDP’s 16 Lok Sabha MPs has played a pivotal role in Modi’s return to power for a third consecutive term as head of a coalition government in which the BJP, for the first time since 2014, doesn’t enjoy a majority of its own. The please-all stand taken by the TDP on the Waqf Bill, however, comes as the first instance since the formation of the third Modi-led government that demonstrates that Naidu hasn’t completely surrendered to the BJP and his support will not come at the cost of his party’s electoral concerns; of which the support of Muslims is a key pillar.

The TDP’s stand on the Bill in the Lok Sabha was markedly different from the position taken by the BJP’s other crucial ally, Nitish Kumar’s JD(U). While JD(U) MP and Union Minister Rajiv Ranjan Singh ‘Lalan’ said his party “fully supported” the Bill and even put up a spirited defence of the draft law, TDP MP GM Harish Balayogi exercised restraint, asserting that though reforms in the Waqf apparatus were essential, his party was open to the Bill being referred to a parliamentary committee “for wider consultations”.

Threat of exposing cracks

For the BJP, the stand taken by the TDP and the YSRCP could have led to an embarrassing situation in both Houses of Parliament. Had the government tried to bulldoze the Bill through the Lok Sabha, there was no telling if the TDP would have still voted in favour of the Bill or abstained, in a bid to keep its Muslim vote bank intact.

Either scenario would not have destabilised the government but it would have exposed the faultlines in the shaky ground on which it stands. INDIA bloc members were sure to seek a division of votes when the legislation was passed; something that may or may not have revealed a fall in the government’s Bench strength and also an increase in the ranks of the Opposition as the YSRCP, along with some other non-aligned parties and independents would have voted alongside it.

The BJP’s complication and embarrassment in the Rajya Sabha would have been greater. The YSRCP may have been reduced to a four-member bloc in the Lok Sabha but in the Rajya Sabha, it still has a strong contingent of 11 MPs. If Reddy refused to support the Bill, these 11 MPs, along with another friend-turned-foe of the BJP, Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal (BJD), could have helped the INDIA bloc in stalling the legislation’s passage in the Rajya Sabha.

Avoiding embarrassment

The BJD, like the YSRCP, had helped the BJP get tricky laws passed in the Lok Sabha over the past decade but since being wiped out of power by the saffron party in Odisha this June, Patnaik has made it known that his party, which has eight MPs in the Rajya Sabha, will no longer bail the Centre out in Parliament.

BJP insiders say Rijiju’s surprise move to concede the government’s willingness to refer the Bill to a JPC for further consultations, after he spent over an hour defending the draft law against the criticisms hurled by the Opposition, is meant to “avoid any embarrassment” for the party in either House of Parliament while the BJP bides its time till the moment when it can count of TDP’s unqualified support in the Lok Sabha and, simultaneously, shore up its bench strength in the Rajya Sabha, either by breaking away YSRCP, BJD and other Opposition MPs or by winning more seats fair and square in Rajya Sabha polls and bypolls.

Boost for INDIA alliance

The Bill’s reference to a JPC, which will now be constituted by Lok Sabha Speaker after consultations with leaders of all political parties, is bound to come as a confidence booster for the INDIA bloc. The Opposition has been repeatedly asserting since the June polls that the Modi government won’t survive its full term on the unreliable crutches of the TDP and the JD(U) and the former’s stance on the Waqf Bill is likely to be invoked by the INDIA constituents as a prelude to their prophecy.

Opposition leaders, however, admit off the record that Thursday’s victory was a pyrrhic victory and that the Modi government had almost the entirety of its five-year tenure to make more bids to have the Bill passed by Parliament.

It now remains to be seen whether by conceding a JPC for wider consultations on the Bill the BJP has stooped to eventually conquer or simply stooped. The Opposition can, however, take heart from the fact that it managed to stall the BJP’s bid to enact a polarising and divisive law that could have further alienated the Muslim minority.