Congress: Modi Govt using Instant Triple Talaq as a ‘political football’

“An unnerved BJP, finding itself cornered on the issue of women’s security with repeated and gruesome rape incidents” in its tenure, is now trying to “divert and reset the political agenda by hurriedly bringing an ordinance on Instant Triple Talaq,” said Congress Communications In-Charge Randeep Singh Surjewala on September 19.

Law Ministry sources had on September 19 said that the Union Cabinet has cleared an ordinance to make the practice of instant triple talaq a penal offence.

“Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP have become habitual offenders of using the issue of instant triple talaq as a ‘political football’ for ‘vote garnering’, rather than ensuring the welfare and subsistence of Muslim women”, said Surjewala, adding that "Even today, the Modi Government and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad have indulged in mere vilification and blame game without releasing the proposed ordinance or listing out the solutions or concerns raised by Muslim women on the subsistence for themselves as also the children born out of the marriage.”

Surjewala asked why PM Modi and Law Minister Prasad did not bring a legislation or ordinance to ban instant triple talaq between May 26 2014, when the Modi Government was sworn in, until the Supreme Court judgement of August 22 2017, which declared instant triple talaq illegal and unconstitutional. “It is only after the Supreme Court Judgement in the case that PM Modi and BJP tried to make political capital by proposing a legislation that was heavily loaded against the welfare of Muslim women,” said Surjewala.

The Congress said its stance has always been that the issue of instant triple talaq ie talaq-e-biddat is about gender justice and gender equity, and not only welcomed the Supreme Court judgement quashing instant triple talaq as a victory for the rights of Muslim women, but it was Congress leaders who represented the women petitioners before the Supreme Court. The party said the “supreme concern should be to ensure subsistence allowance and welfare and dignity of Muslim women and children, instead of fake credit-seeking by the Modi Government”.

Congress listed the following issues related to welfare and dignity of women and children that it alleges are deliberately not being addressed by BJP, so that the issue of instant triple talaq remains a “polarising, vote-garnering issue to be used as a political football”.

• Subsistence Allowance neither defined nor the amount quantified in the proposed legislation or even in the ordinance
• Will the Subsistence Allowance be in addition to Maintenance granted to a Muslim woman under Section 3 and Section 4 of ‘The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, 1986, or will a Muslim woman be entitled to only one of the two?
• Once husband is in jail, who will ensure payment of Maintenance and/or Subsistence Allowance to women and children?
• Why should the woman and children not have a right to proceed against the estate ie movable and immovable property of the husband?
• Why should onus of proving instant triple talaq be on women, as per the proposed Legislation or the proposed Ordinance? Why can’t this law envisage a ‘presumption in favour of the woman’ putting the onus of proof on the ‘husband’ to establish that instant triple talaq was not pronounced by him?