Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah says the waqf board won’t stake a claim to any temple or land being cultivated by farmers.
BENGALURU — Of the 11,204 Karnataka farmers who received waqf board notices over land encroachment, around 81 per cent are Muslims and only 2,080 farmers belong to the Hindu community, the state government said in the Assembly on Wednesday.
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said the Government would form a committee led by a retired high court judge to assess whether temples and land cultivated by farmers are on waqf assets. He added that the waqf board would not stake a claim to any temple or land being cultivated by farmers, reported The Indian Express.
Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda, who responded on behalf of the Government, said that of the agricultural land spanning around three crore acres in the state, only 4,500 acres of waqf land—out of its over 20,000 acres—was cultivable. “This amounts to only 0.006 per cent of the total land under cultivation,” the minister said, accusing the Opposition BJP of spreading canards that Muslims were encroaching on Hindus’ land.
The waqf rules were in place in the country before Independence. A 1974 gazette notification in the state had pegged the total waqf land at 1.12 lakh acres. However, the board currently has only 20,054 acres, as a large portion of the land was handed over to farmers following the implementation of the Land Revenue Act and the Inam Abolition Act, the minister explained.
His response came after the BJP staged a walkout, insisting that Housing, Waqf and Minority Affairs Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan respond to all queries raised by the Opposition and demanding that the 1974 notification be withdrawn. The chief minister refused, stating that the notification was based on the Waqf Act of the Central government.
BJP MLA Basangouda Patil Yatnal—who had spearheaded one of the two BJP campaigns demanding the abolition of the waqf board—was absent in the House during the minister’s response. Additionally, a few JD(S) legislators did not walk out with their NDA allies, even though they had backed the BJP during other walkouts in the ongoing winter session. JD(S) legislature party leader Suresh Babu said the MLAs stayed back to discuss important issues.
Khan had said that during its two terms, 2008-13 and 2019-23, the BJP government had issued 4,667 notices of waqf land encroachment, while the Congress governments served 3,286 notices. The notices are based on various Supreme Court orders that pressed for the protection of waqf properties across the country, he added.
In response to Opposition claims that encroachment notices were being issued to temples, the minister said the Government would not take any action against temples if they were found to be on waqf land.
Siddaramaiah then intervened to state that he had directed the withdrawal of any notices served to temples and farmers. He also pointed to the BJP manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, where the saffron party had promised to clear all waqf land encroachments.
A heated exchange occurred between the treasury and Opposition benches as Leader of the Opposition R Ashoka and others insisted that either Khan or Siddaramaiah address all the concerns raised by BJP legislators last week in the Assembly. The ruling party protested, stating that Gowda also needed to provide a response, as the notices were issued by officials of the revenue department.
Later, the demand to withdraw the 1974 notification became a bone of contention. When Ashoka pushed for its withdrawal, the chief minister asked why the BJP had not done so during its past two tenures.
