Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said that the BJP government will move a Bill seeking to ban polygamy until a final decision is taken on the Uniform Civil Code (UCC).
Speaking at an event in Guwahati, Sarma said that the government is in favour of UCC, although neighbouring states like Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya, where the BJP is in power, have expressed their opposition to UCC.
“The UCC is a matter that will be decided by Parliament and, of course, states can take a call with the President’s assent,” he said. “So UCC involves various issues — the Law Commission is looking into it, the Parliamentary committee is looking at it, and the Assam government has already conveyed that we are in support of UCC.”
“Pending a decision, we want to take out one segment of the entire UCC, which is polygamy. In Assam, we want to ban polygamy immediately,” he said.
The Assam government had announced in May that it will move to ban polygamy through “legislative action”. A committee was constituted which was headed by a retired Guahati High Court judge to examine the “legislative competence of (the) state legislature to enact a law to end polygamy”. The committee gave 60 days to submit the report.
Sarma added that if the committee sends the report before 60 days, the government will introduce the Bill in the September Assembly Session. And, if not in September, then it will be introduced in the January session.
The CM added that only cracking down on child marriage is not the solution, banning polygamy is also important.
In February, the Assam government launched a statewide crackdown on child marriages and arrested over 3,000 people, including priests who had officiated the weddings.