Political Row Intensifies as Bommai Demands Action on Wakf Encroachment Report

On Sunday, Former Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has urged the current Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to initiate a Special Investigation Team (SIT) or CBI probe into the Anwar Manippady report on the encroachment of wakf properties.

He posted on his official X handle about his demands:

This report, which was submitted in 2012, allegedly named several Congress leaders involved in land encroachments.

Basavaraj Bommai reacted to an old video released by Wakf Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan. The old video showed that Former CM was supporting the Wakf Board and taking over farmers’ lands. The video highlighted the issue that Bommai was about to take action against Farmers.  But now Bommai stated he only discussed reclaiming wakf properties encroached upon by Congress leaders and denied issuing any notices to farmers.

As reported by Deccan Herald news sources, Bommai said, “I did not convene any Wakf Board meeting. At a Wakf event, I only spoke about Manipaddy committee report, which mentioned about the encroachment of Wakf properties by the Congress leaders. My government did not issue any notice to farmers, nor did we seize any farmers’ land.”

On another announcement BJP legislator Basanagouda Patil Yatnal announced an indefinite protest starting Monday. The demand is to remove  “wakf property” mentions from farmers’ land records. Yatnal also called for the nationalization of Wakf properties and the scrapping of the Wakf Act.

Yatnal said in a press release, “The government should take immediate steps to delete ‘wakf property’ mentioned in any of the columns of RTC records of lands belonging to farmers. Any dispute pertaining to wakf should be referred to jurisdictional courts and not to the wakf tribunal.”

As the politics on Wakf Act is heating up in Karnataka, the CM Siddaramaiah also shows its concern by posting on his X account.