New Delhi : Congress leader and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi arrived at the Parliament Annexe building on Wednesday for a meeting with the party's Lok Sabha Members of Parliament (MPs). Today in Parliament Waqf Amendment Bill of 2025 is going to be tabled, which aims to amend the Waqf Act of 1995 for passing.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will move that the amendments made by Rajya Sabha in the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill of 2024, which further amends the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, the State Bank of India Act, 1955, the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970, and the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1980, be taken into consideration.
Meanwhile, Union Ministers Jitendra Singh, L Murugan and Ravneet Singh will "lay papers on the table" for their respective ministries. Both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress are issuing whips to their MPs to ensure their presence in the House. Congress MPs and a few of the opposition parties are against the Waqf Amendment Bill.
Congress MP K Suresh said that the INDIA bloc is against the Waqf Amendment Bill and will oppose it in the parliament. "The entire opposition is against this bill. Our members in the Joint Parliamentary Committee have also decided to oppose this bill. Yesterday, the INDIA bloc leaders unanimously decided to oppose this Waqf amendment bill," K Suresh said.
Congress' Khaleequr Rahman slammed centre government over Waqf (Amendment) Bill, saying that the entire exercise is being done in an unconstitutional manner. Samajwadi Party MP Ram Gopal Yadav reiterated his party's opposition to the proposed amendments on Wednesday, describing them as dictatorial and unconstitutional.
"Our party has been opposing this bill from the beginning. The amendments made in the bill are dictatorial and unconstitutional...They are in the majority, and they will get it passed somehow, but we want to have discussions so that the country should know what they are doing," he told news agency.