New Delhi: Amid a raging row over The Waqf (Amendment) Act 2025, the BJP is preparing to organise “Isai Sadbhav” meetings in areas with Christian concentration in Kerala and 13 other states to counter the Opposition’s “fake narrative” and highlight how the legislation ‘positively impacts’ other communities.
The party has already announced the launch of its awareness campaign called the ‘Waqf Sudhar Janjagran Abhiyan’ from 20 April to 5 May, and the Christian outreach events are part this initiative.
Under the “Isai Sadbhav” programme, at least one meeting will be organised in each district in key states including Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Jharkhand, Kerala, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.
A senior BJP leader said the party has given directions that the meeting with the community members be presided over by a senior leader preferably from the Christian community who has influence in the region.
“The act will bring many benefits to the Christian community. While the Opposition has been highlighting the Muslim aspect (of the amendments), our workers will be countering their fake narrative by highlighting how it positively impacts the other communities especially the Christians. We are witnessing what has been happening in Kerala and we will be talking about such incidents,” said the leader.
The passage of the Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 by Parliament earlier this month and subsequent assent by the President of India on 8 April was followed by violent protests in West Bengal and other parts of the country. The matter has also reached the Supreme Court which is hearing a clutch of petitions challenging the act.
The BJP has highlighted several instances of alleged irregularities in the management and governance of waqf properties and claimed the amendments will set that right.
For instance, BJP has claimed the amended act will help Christians in the Munambam village in Kerala’s Ernakulum district win back their revenue rights over a four-acre stretch that was declared a waqf asset by the state Waqf Board.
Over 600 families—a majority of them Christians—in Munambam have been protesting since 2024 for the reinstatement of their revenue rights. The residents of Munambam, located about 40 km from Kochi, have not been allowed to pay property tax on the board’s direction to the revenue department since 2022.
Local body polls in Kerala are likely to be held by December before assembly elections in March-April 2026.
Union Minister for Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who was in Kochi to visit Munamba, said Tuesday that The Waqf (Amendment) Act, 2025 will ensure what is happening in Munambam does not recur.
The BJP has been seeking to expand its footprints in Kerala, where Muslims and Christians constitute around 45 percent of the population. The party has been making an outreach to the Christian community, which has largely been aligned with the Congress.
Last December, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) at a Christmas celebration event.
In 2023, the state BJP held a ‘Sneh Yatra’, an outreach programme aimed at connecting with the Christian community. BJP won its first-ever parliamentary seat in Kerala in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections with actor-turned-politician Suresh Gopi emerging victorious from Thrissur.
The party has prepared literature on the new waqf law which is being disseminated amongst party workers. The literature contends that no Muslim religious site will be affected by the new law, no asset owned by a Muslim will be transferred to a non-Muslim and any property currently under encroachment will be reclaimed, providing ‘justice to all religious communities—Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, and Sikhs’.
(Edited by Ajeet Kumar Tiwari)
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