KARNATAKA: Furore Over Waqf Land

In the heat and dust of the assembly bypolls that concluded on November 13 in Karnataka, the state’s Congress government found itself grappling with a thorny issue that has snowballed into a controversy with nationwide ramifications. Hence it came to be that, amid the shrill election campaigns for the Channapatna, Shiggaon and Sandur assembly seats, the event that garnered national attention was the November 7 visit to Karnataka by a parliamentarian from Uttar Pradesh, Jagdambika Pal. Famous as the “one-day chief minister of UP”, the BJP’s Domariyaganj MP chairs the 21-member joint parliamentary committee (JPC) examining the contentious Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024, introduced in the Lok Sabha this August.

- Ajay Sukumaran

Pal’s visit to Vijayapura district came two weeks after the BJP MP from Bengaluru, Tejasvi Surya, also a member of the JPC, alleged that farmland running into thousands of acres in the northern district was being claimed as Waqf property. He accused the Siddaramaiah-led government of abetting this by serving notices to farmers and effecting mutations in land records—by inserting a Waqf claim that will essentially preclude any land transaction—without “due process of law”.