Uniform Civil Code: BJP Pre-Poll Stunt

A step has been taken forward to get a report.

IUML secretary E.T. Mohammed Basheer, who explained the party’s stance on the issue at a press conference here, alleged that it was part of a communal agenda endorsed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Implementation of a uniform civil code has always been a core principle of the party and the Sangh Parivar but it, besides other contentious demands like scrapping Article 370 and building Ram temple, was kept out of the first NDA government’s agenda. The BJP has promised to implement the uniform civil code in its manifesto before the Lok Sabha elections in 2014.

Responding to the implications of implementing the Uniform Civil Code across the country, Union Law and Justice Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda on Sunday said a wide range of debate and consultations are required for it, adding the government wants to study this sensitive matter in detail.

The move has set off a controversy with the Congress saying the BJP was “deliberately” raking up the issue with an eye on the Uttar Pradesh assembly elections.

A report in the Economic Times has claimed that the Union Law Ministry has written to the Law Commission, asking it to “examine the matter in relation to uniform civil code and submit a report”. The Law Commission, now headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Balbir Singh Chauhan, will soon submit its report.

“Certainly, if genuine efforts are made to generate that consensus, a time may arrive when something can be done in that direction”.

“… Even the Preamble of our Constitution and Article 44 of the Constitution do say that there should be a Uniform Civil Code…it needs to have a wider consultation”, he had said. “But if it is a political stuntbaazi which is what we believe it is every time as far as the BJP is concerned then certainly we condemn it”, Singhvi said. The Constitutional framers, they advocated it and they have put in directive principles (of state policy) hoping the country in due course will go for a uniform civil code.

The Uniform Civil Code envisages a common set of personal rules dealing with such matters as marriage, divorce, property inheritance, succession etc. for all citizens.