Our Bureau
New Delhi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday praised the Dawoodi Bohra community for their significant contribution in shaping the Waqf (Amendment) Act, saying their involvement extended to even the smallest technical details — “even down to commas and full stops.”
PM Modi also lauded Dawoodi Bohra spiritual leader Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin for playing a key role in the drafting process.
“Perhaps very few of you know that when I first got the idea of working on the Waqf (Amendment) Act, the first person I consulted was Syedna Sahib,” PM Modi told the delegation.
He said Syedna Saheb gave his full support and even sent members of the Bohra community to help with the legal review and drafting of the law. The Prime Minister added that the community’s involvement went into the smallest technical details as he brought in knowledgeable people from your community.
PM Narendra Modi emphasised that the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 was enacted following hundreds of complaints from people from the Muslim community, including women and widows, against the earlier system. He said, “I’ve been fighting to empower victims of the previous laws, especially widows, who suffered the most. Our goal is to ensure justice for them,” Modi said while addressing a meeting with a delegation of the Dawoodi Bohra community.
However, the opposition parties have graced the Supreme Court interim order stating that neither waqf properties, including “waqf by user”, will be denotified nor appointments will be made to the central waqf council and boards till May 5. The court further granted the Centre a week to file its response to the petitions challenging the validity of the Act.
Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, who was in court as one of the petitioners, said: “During the deliberations of the joint parliamentary committee, I gave a report opposing all amendments proposed by the government, and during the debate on the bill, I called the bill unconstitutional. Our legal battle against this act will continue.”
Praising the apex court’s decision, CPM state secretary M.V. Govindan said the order was an effective defence against the Centre’s “arbitrary, anti-secular” decision to amend the waqf act.
Addressing reporters at a party event in Bhubaneswar, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said: “The BJP knows how to snatch from people. Now they have come up with this waqf bill, they want to snatch land, they don’t want to give anything.”
Sharing his perspective, Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi told reporters: “The Waqf Amendment Act is not an exercise in efficiency as it pretends to be. It is an exercise in erasure…. This is not about improving institutions but about infiltrating, controlling and closing them. “It’s not about minorities called Muslims — it’s about a message that minority institutions are fair game for state takeover…. If we do not speak today, tomorrow we may lose our right to speak and this fight is not only against a law but also against a thought.”
BJP on the other hand, however, have denied these allegations with PM Narendra Modi saying that the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 was enacted following hundreds of complaints from people from the Muslim community, including women and widows, against the earlier system.
