Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Parliament Nishikant Dubey has stirred controversy with his ‘ISI and China link’ remarks about those who have sent suggestions to the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on the Waqf (Amendment) Bill.

Dubey has been accused of trying to tarnish the image of Muslims in the name of people making suggestions to the JCP. A Muslim body – the All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (AIPMM) has raised objections and written to the JPC seeking a probe against the BJP leader’s comments.

“There has been an attempt to tarnish the image of Muslims in the name of people making suggestions to the JCP. The conduct of the member must be probed. We understand Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set up the panel on the Waqf Bill with noble intentions to consider views from various sections,” AIPMM chief Ali Anwar Ansari was quoted as saying in a report by the Indian Express.

Ansari has also been a member of Rajya Sabha has shot off a letter to JPC chairperson and BJP leader Jagdambika Pal.

‘Zakir Naik or foreign powers like the ISI’

In August, Modi government faced opposition while it tried to pass the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, 2024 in the Parliament. The government finally decided to form a JPC with as many as 21 members to scrutinise the proposed law. Dubey is also one of the members of JPC.

Dubey, in a letter to Pal, had in September sought an investigation by the Union home ministry into the origin of the feedback to the parliamentary panel, according to news agency PTI.

Dubey, a four-time MP, said the number of submissions was “unprecedented” and had set a global record for legislative submissions.

“Fundamentalist groups, individuals like Zakir Naik or foreign powers like the ISI (Pakistan) or China or their proxies may be involved given that 1.25 crore submissions have been received. If such forces are involved, it would be an attempt to manipulate our legislative process, an attack on the very foundations of our parliamentary system and must be treated as a national security issue,” Dubey, the Godda constituency in Jharkhand, had said last week.

We want to know on what grounds the member made such a statement.

The amended bill provides for a broad-based composition of the Central Waqf Council and the state Waqf boards and ensures the representation of Muslim women and non-Muslims in such bodies. The Wakf (Amendment) Act, 2013 provided that “at least two of the members appointed under sub-clauses (i) to (viii) shall be women.”

“We saw a statement by a committee member (Dubey) that the JCP had received about 1.25 crore suggestions … There was a demand for an investigation of the origin of suggestions as some of them came from those suspected to have a ‘radical Islamic image and alleged links to the ISI’. We want to know on what grounds the member made such a statement,” read the October 3 letter, as per the Indian Express report.

Earlier, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), the apex body of Muslim clerics in India, had said the volume of response was on expected lines. The AIMPLB junked Dubey’s conspiracy claims, citing an earlier instance when 4.85 crore suggestions were sent to the government after its appeal, according to a report in India Today.