SalSalary for imams: Cong terms Lalu’s demand poll stunt

Salary for imams: Cong terms Lalu’s demand poll stunt

Pioneer News Service

Under pressure from RJD and Trinamool Congress which fished out a 17-year-old Supreme Court verdict on salaries for imams of the Government-aided mosques and demanded its implementation in Lok Sabha, the Government agreed to look into the issue, prompting the BJP to seek a similar package for the Hindu temple priests.

With an eye on Bihar Assembly election, where minority votes could be crucial for RJD’s quest for power, party chief Lalu Prasad raised the issue during Zero Hour and wanted to know the reasons for delay in implementation of a 1993 Supreme Court judgement on a petition of the All India Imams Organisation relating to salaries of imams in the Government-aided mosques and remuneration to clerics in non-aided places of worship. Trinamool Congress and Samajwadi Party MPs also expressed similar sentiments and demanded that the Government should make a statement on it.

Minority Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid stood up and replied that there were some differences among imams and the issue needed to be debated. His statement triggered an uproar in Lok Sabha as RJD, SP and Trinamool Congress demanded why the Government had been taking so long to implement the apex court order.

BJP members, including Yogi Adityanath and Bijoya Chakraborty, were up on their feet protesting such a move and then demanding similar remuneration for eight lakh temple priests across the country.

Seeing the agitated members, Leader of the House Pranab Mukherjee stood up to pacify them and assured that the Government would take appropriate action to implement the judgement. He said, “The Supreme Court order is very clear. The operative part of the judgement is Para 6 which says that the Government of India and the Central Wakf Board have to prepare a plan in six months. The Government will take a decision on this soon.”

The Congress, however, dismissed their concern on the issue as an election stunt by dragging matters out of the “closet”. Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari told reporters, “There is election in Bihar and when elections are round the corner, a large number of cases are dragged out of the closet.” Tewari wondered why the RJD leader did not raise the issue when he was a Minister in UPA-1 Government.

Reacting to the Congress charge, Lalu said, “Congress did not implement it despite coming to power on Muslim votes. But when our party will come to power in Bihar, we will implement the directive.”

“Congress has only indulged in vote ki rajniti (vote-bank politics). It only seeks votes from the minorities but does little for their welfare,” Prasad told reporters outside Parliament. Prasad said as per the 1993 Supreme Court judgement, a law was to be framed within six months to provide salary to imams (clerics) of the Government-aided mosques and remuneration to imams of unaided mosques. He also threatened a “mass agitation” if the SC directives were not implemented at the earliest.

Expressing similar sentiments, Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandhyopadhyay said his party supported RJD on the issue as “imams in West Bengal were in a bad state and facing economic crisis”. He rejected suggestions that TC raised the issue keeping in mind the coming Assembly elections. “Minorities are already with Mamataji,” he added.

The TC leader said after Jammu and Kashmir and Assam, West Bengal has the maximum number of Muslims in the country. “They constitute 28 per cent of the State’s population,” he said.

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