BJP ally AIADMK against Uniform Civil Code, says it hasn’t changed its stand

Tamil Nadu’s All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) on Wednesday signalled its opposition to the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), recalling that it had taken a clear stand on the issue in the party’s manifesto ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

“Please read our 2019 election manifesto in which we have expressed our views on the issue very clearly,” AIADMK’s general secretary and former chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) told reporters after a meeting with district secretaries in Chennai.

The AIADMK and BJP contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in an alliance. But the Dravidian party’s election manifesto said that the AIADMK would urge the government of India not to bring any amendments to the Constitution for a Uniform Civil Code”. The AIADMK also said that UCC would “adversely affect the religious rights of minorities in India”.

A senior AIADMK leader close to EPS said the party did not discuss the UCC at the meeting of district secretaries “but there is no change in our stand”.

The AIADMK has often signalled to minority communities in the state that their ideology was different than that of the BJP though they were allies. “So we had to make our stance clear,” said a second AIADMK leader.

The ruling DMK and its allies have vehemently criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for pushing for the UCC in his speech in Bhopal. “First let the BJP bring uniformity among Hindus,” DMK MP TKS Elangovan had said earlier.

To be sure, the AIADMK initially supported the controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in both houses of Parliament but changed its position ahead of the 2021 assembly election, stating that they urge the union government to repeal the law.