Will Discuss with Allies: Law Minister Arjun Meghwal On Uniform Civil Code

The Uniform Civil Code will come and the BJP will talk to NDA allies to make it happen, Union minister Arjun Ram Meghwal told NDTV on the 100-day anniversary of the third consecutive government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Uniform Code is one of the first three promises of the BJP which it has inherited from its predecessor Jan Sangh, Mr Meghwal said. 

"We have fulfilled the other two promises -- the construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya and the scrapping of Constitution's Article 370 that gave Jammu and Kashmir its special status... The Law Commission is working on it (the Uniform Civil Code) , but some states have already implemented it... Uttarakhand, Goa. Other states are thinking about it," Mr Meghwal told NDTV in an exclusive interview. 

The Prime minister, he added, has declared it from the ramparts of the Red Fort in his address on Independence Day. We will talk to the allies and certainly take steps in his direction," he added.

The Uniform Civil Code, which will do away with personal laws of various communities on key issues like marriage, divorce, inheritance, and adoption, and bring all citizens on par, has been bitterly criticized by the Opposition, given its current form. 

A few NDA allies -- among them Bihar Chief Minster Nitish Kumar and his Andhra Pradesh counterpart Chandrababu Naidu -- are also on the same page as the Opposition.  Both parties have called for wider discussions and consensus on the law before it is given a final shape.

The draft bill is now before a Parliamentary Standing committee. 

In his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called the current criminal law "communal" and said it should be replaced by secular version. 

"Many people in the country --and it is true -- believe that the Civil Code we currently follow is, in fact, a communal one," PM Modi had said. "It is imperative that we establish a Secular Civil Code in the country... only then can we eliminate discrimination based on religion," he had added.

The Supreme Court has also called for the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code in several of its judgments.