All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi on Saturday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was raising the issue of the Uniform Civil Code to get votes in the Gujarat Assembly elections and push its Hindutva agenda.
The Hyderabad MP also asked if the "exclusion" of Muslims and Christians from income tax benefits for Hindu Undivided Families wasn't against the principle of equality.
The BJP government in Gujarat earlier in the day announced that it would constitute a committee under a retired High Court judge to evaluate all aspects of the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code in the state.
Addressing an election rally at Vadgam in Banaskantha district, Owaisi said the Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had told the Supreme Court that enacting the UCC was the Centre's purview and not that of the states.
"Isn't it true that Babasaheb Ambedkar said that Uniform Civil Code should be voluntary and not mandatory?... But the BJP only wants to move ahead with its Hindutva agenda and it has the habit of raising such issues before elections to get votes," he alleged.
A law commission had in 2018 said that the UCC was neither necessary nor desirable, he said.
"For a Muslim, marriage is a contract, for a Hindu, it is living forever after, for a Christian, it is 'I do. This is India's pluralism which has been made possible through Articles 25, 26, 14, 19, and 20 (of the Constitution). Can anyone make a law against Article 29 (which protects the interests of minority groups) by enacting the UCC?" he asked.
"I would like to ask the prime minister why Muslims and Christians are excluded from the benefit of income tax rebate under Hindu Undivided Family. Isn't it against the right to equality?" he asked.
(Inputs from PTI)
