New Delhi: The Lok Sabha passed the Waqf (Amendment) Bill — Unified Waqf Management Empowerment, Efficiency and Development Bill (UMEED) — well past midnight on Wednesday after a marathon 12-hour-long debate, with Home Minister Amit Shah categorically assuring the Muslim community that the new Bill does not interfere with their religious practices.

The Home Minister also accused the Opposition of “fear- mongering” for the sake of “vote bank” politics. The debate, which started on Wednesday afternoon (Apr. 2), went past midnight with a division of votes, as the Bill was passed with 288 MPs voting in favour and 232 against.

Intervening in the debate, Shah made it clear that a mutawalli or the manager/ administrator of a Waqf — a charitable endowment — and the waqif (donor) can only be from the Muslim community.

Non-Muslims have been included in a Waqf Board or Council for administrative purposes and that too to ensure that any donation is being used for the purpose it is meant for, he added.

“There is an attempt to spread confusion that this law will interfere with (Muslim) religious practices and the nature of donation. Such fear-mongering is being done to create a vote bank,” he said, adding, “Waqf or charitable endowment is religious, not the Waqf Board or Councils.”

“The Narendra Modi Government runs on a very clear principle that we will not bring any law for vote bank because the law is for justice and welfare of people,” Shah said.

Opposition members, however, called the Bill ‘unconstitutional.’