After a lengthy debate in the Rajya Sabha, the Parliament passed the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2025, early on Friday morning.
The Bill received a total of 128 votes in support and 95 votes against it. President Droupadi Murmu will now get the bill for her approval. It will thereafter become an Act.
The leaders of the NDA and INDIA blocs engaged in a heated argument in the Rajya Sabha over the bill.
Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju, who took part in the discussion, stated that the Bill was introduced with several changes based on input from different stakeholders.
The Waqf Board is a legally mandated organisation. The minister explained why non-Muslims were on the board by saying, “All government bodies should be secular.”
He did, however, deny claims that the Bill would hurt Muslim interests and maintained that non-Muslims could not meddle in the Waqf Board’s operations because its establishment, administration, and beneficiaries would all be Muslims.
The Biju Janata Dal (BJD), led by Naveen Patnaik, announced a “conscience vote” just hours before the election, informing its seven upper house MPs that they would not be subject to a whip and may cast their votes for any party.
In a post on X, Sasmit Patra, the senior leader of the party, stated that they had reached that conclusion after considering the opinions of “different sections of the minority communities regarding the Waqf (Amendment) Bill.”
The Bill was earlier adopted by the Lok Sabha on Thursday following a lengthy discussion that lasted more than twelve hours. 288 MPs voted in favour of the measure in the lower house, while 232 did not.
