Bhupen Goswami

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Tuesday announced a ban on polygamy. “We are not going through a Uniform Civil Code, but we want to ban polygamy under a state Act,” he said at a press conference in Guwahati today. The Assam government has decided to set up an expert committee to examine whether the state government has the authority to ban polygamy in the region. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said the government wants to ban polygamy in the state. He further said that the committee will hold extensive discussions with all stakeholders, including legal experts, and examine the provisions of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Act, 1937. Sarma said the committee will examine the provisions of Article 25 of the Constitution of India as well as the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Act, 1937 with regard to the Directive Principle of State Policy for Uniform Civil Code. The committee will hold extensive consultations with all stakeholders, including legal experts, to arrive at a decision. Earlier on Saturday, Chief Minister Sarma, while addressing a rally in poll-bound Karnataka, had said that implementing the Uniform Civil Code in the state was crucial to end the practice of men having four marriages and making women “child-bearing machines”. The Assam chief minister was holding a roadshow in Karnataka’s Kodagu district as part of the BJP’s campaign. He had said that we have to bring uniform civil code. More than four marriages are conducted for Muslim women and daughters. There should not be such a rule in the world. We have to end this system by implementing a Uniform Civil Code. Muslim daughters should be made doctors and engineers, not child-producing machines. The BJP has promised to work on a uniform civil code if voted to power. I want to thank THE BJP for this.Earlier today, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma signed the MoU at a meeting of the Industries Department at Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra, Punjabi on the eve of completion of two years of Assam Government. “There is no upheaval in the society, and today I can say that not a single democratic movement has been seen in Assam not only in the Covid year but also after Covid… We have not seen a single closure in the last two years.