On Friday, Amit Shah once again reiterated that the Bharatiya Janata Party was dedicated to the implementation of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in India, but that tribal people were not within its reach. Speaking at an election rally in Goalpara before Assam Assembly elections, Shah stated that the UCC would see to it that a single set of laws were applied to personal affairs like marriage, divorce, and inheritance and that customs such as polygamy would be controlled within the framework.
He stressed that the party is conscious of unique cultural and legal customs of tribal communities and would make sure that their rights and traditions are safeguarded. The BJP also included the UCC, a highly debatable and polarising topic in its 31-point manifesto, which had been released during Assam elections.
Article 44 of the Constitution mentions the idea of a Uniform Civil Code by urging the state to create a referenced set of civil laws that should apply to all citizens. But, personal laws have been mostly dominated by codes of religions since independence.
Amit Shah has indicated that Uttarakhand was the first state to enact law on the UCC in 2024, and Gujarat soon followed suit. He explained the nationwide adoption of UCC to be one of the most prominent ideological aims of the BJP, along with such milestones like the erection of the Ram Temple and the abolition of Article 370.
In a criticism of the Indian National Congress, Shah claimed that it had forgotten about the welfare of the tribes and was seeking communities as vote banks. He praised the leadership of Narendra Modi who focused on tribal development and made Droupadi Murmu the president, pointing to more budgetary allocations in favour of tribal welfare since 2014.