Congress response to waqf row mired in finger pointing, infighting

Karnataka Congress has been sending out mixed signals in its response to the waqf row which has been raging in the state. The controversy refers to the local tehsildar in mid-October issuing notices to 124 farmers in Honavada village in Tikota taluk of Vijayapura district informing them that their lands were being claimed by the Karnataka State Board of Auqaf (KSBA). Later on, Vijayapura district-in-charge Minister MB Patil clarified that only 11 of the 1,200 acres in Honavada village is waqf property, adding that the issue was a gazette notification mistake. Waqf is an Islamic endowment, usually land donated by Muslims in the name of God for charitable purposes. Auqaf is the plural of waqf. Since then, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has clarified that the notices would be withdrawn and no farmer would be evicted.

The CM and MB Patil have also released documents showing similar notices were issued under the BJP State government, a strategy emulated by other Congress leaders in the state. However, other party men resorted to blaming Minister for Housing, Minority Welfare and Waqf BZ Zameer Ahmed for essentially kick-starting the row. In mid-October, he held a meeting with the Vijayapura district Deputy Commissioner (DC) and tehsildar, raising the issue of large scale encroachments of waqf property, an oft-cited problem.

23 MLAs write to Kharge; As many as 23 MLAs from the Lingayat, Vokkaliga and Dalit communities wrote to the All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday requesting that he intervene, adding that the issue was mismanaged. They believe that the controversy had the potential to hurt the party’s political interests. They also want Zameer to not issue statements on the issue. By-elections are due in Sandur, Shiggaon and Channapatna constituencies on November 13. Zameer, who has been busy with election campaigning in Shiggaon, held a waqf board meeting on Thursday over the KSBA elections on November 19. The minister was defensive over the issue. “I have said this repeatedly and the Chief Minister has said this as well. If we have issued notices to farmers, they’ll be withdrawn. We won’t trouble the farmers,” he said, adding that the BJP was politicizing the issue. Since then, farmers elsewhere in the state have raised the issue of notices being sent to them by their local tehsildars wherein the waqf board is claiming their lands with the backing of the saffron party.

The Opposition BJP has been staging protests against the ruling Congress over the issue, despite the assurances by the CM that the notices to the Honavada farmers would be withdrawn. The Grand Old Party reckons that the BJP is using the issue to stoke communal tension in the lead up to the by-polls. The Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) Jagadambika Pal of the waqf Bill visited Hubballi on Thursday and interacted with local farmers. More than 500 farmers complained to Pal that the land their families had been tilling for 50 to 70 years was being claimed by the KSBA.