Congress to give its reaction after the government comes out with the draft bill on UCC
As the general elections and polls in three states are coming nearer, the issue of Uniform Civil Code has gained tremendous momentum especially after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement on the UCC publicly in Bhopal followed by the announcement by the chief of UCC expert committee of Uttarakhand, former Supreme Court Justice Ranjana Desai regarding finalisation of their report having gone for printing which will be presented to Uttarakhand government in month of July terming it as a best document for guaranteeing strong communal harmony in the country.
The Uttarakhand expert committee had sought written views from over 2,35000 people in Uttarakhand including all stakeholders and religious leaders etc including from ten political parties but Congress, AAP n one more party have not responded to their call.
Meanwhile on Saturday the Congress parliamentary party’s strategic group presided over by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and attended by several leaders viz party chief Mallikarjun Kharge, P. Chidambaram, Salman Khurshid, Shashi Tharoor, Manish Tiwari, Jairam Naresh, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Deep ender Hooda, Shakti Singh Solanki, Sayed Nasir Hussain etc has taken a stand not to hurry up to give party’s official reaction on UCC but to wait for the final draft bill in printed form to come up but majority of Congress leaders were of the strong opinion that this desperate exercise of the ruling party government to bring the UCC into effect in view of the fast approaching elections is nothing but an attempt to divert the people’s attention from core issues of inflation, massive unemployment and economic distress.
After the meeting most of the Congress leaders felt that this is nothing but a pre strategic diversionary tactics of the ruling political dispensation to polarise the people on religious grounds as though UCC is necessary for equality in inheritance property rights n some other matters but majorly it is an exercise of needless distraction from core issues affecting the people – unemployment, pride rise and economic distress says an Indian Express report on Sunday.
It may be recalled that on June 25 the Congress leader Jairam Ramesh had addressed a press conference issuing a statement on Law Commission’s decision to seek suggestions on the UCC, but nothing happened said Ramesh adding that Congress stands by its statement that when there is a draft, when there is a discussion we will ofcource participate, examine whatever is, proposed but as of now all we have us Law Commissions public notice… Nothing new has happened for us to add anything to this, statement said communication head of AICC Jairam Ramesh.
According to the report : On Monday, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice led by BJP’s Sushil Kumar Modi, has convened a meeting of the panel to acknowledge the viewpoint of Department of Legal affairs, Law Commission and Legislative department in response to the notice issued by Law Commission to elicit the views of the stakeholders on Uniform Civil Code.
