Congress MLA Imran Khedawala interacts with people from the Muslim community during a meeting on Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024, at Jama Masjid in Ahmedabad
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: A study of over 47,000 people across 388 districts has shown overwhelming support for the new Waqf Bill.
A study by Local Circles shows that 9 in 10 citizens surveyed expressed support towards the bill to amend the Waqf Act and that 96% want the Waqf boards to mandatorily register the Waqf properties with district collectors and want them to have a say in the use of the properties.
The majority of the respondents (34,540) are Hindus while a fraction (7,213) are Muslims.
Sachin Taparia, co-founder and CEO of Local Circles said that the survey, Public Pulse on Waqf Bill, will be submitted to the Joint Parliamentary Committee constituted to look at the bill.
“With many citizens airing their views on LocalCircles and other social media platforms, we conducted a national survey seeking citizen pulse views on the subject,” Taparia said.
Over 69% respondents were men and 31% respondents were women, with 43% respondents being from tier 1 cities, 26% from tier 2 cities and 31% respondents were from tier 3, 4, 5 and rural districts.
In all, the survey received 47,149 responses. There were 1,508 responses by Christians, and 3,087 responses from people of other religions or unidentified religions last names. Additionally, 801 names had only one initial and hence their religion could not be documented, Local Circles stated.
To a question on whether they supported the proposed amendments in the Waqf Act to make working of Waqf Boards more transparent, 15,951 people responded with 91% citizens surveyed express support with the participation of common Muslims, while 8% of respondents stated “no, not at all” and 1% did not give a clear response.
Expressing support to the proposed amendment that requires Waqf boards to mandatorily register their properties with the district collectors, 96% of the total 15,850 respondents said they must be registered, while 4% said no.
Another question posed was whether the disputes involving Waqf property be tried by the Waqf tribunals or should they go through the district courts, high courts and Supreme Court. The question elicited 15,348 responses, of which 93% said that they should go through the regular court system, 6% respondents stated otherwise and 1% of respondents did not give a clear answer.
The Bill was introduced in the last session of Parliament, and due to an uproar among the Opposition parties as well as NDA allies alike, the BJP government formed a JPC chaired by BJP Lok Sabha MP Jagdambika Pal to evaluate the legislation. Two meetings of the Committee have since been held, with both meetings witnessing fireworks among Opposition MPs and BJP members.