Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Tuesday said the ruling BJP should bring the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) Bill through Parliament and not via different states or through the backdoor.

“This is the job of the Parliament. If they have the numbers, they should bring this (UCC) through Parliament. Why are they doing it through different states? Not everyone in their NDA is in agreement on this matter. From what I hear, the Janata Dal United (JDU) has said that this will not be implemented in Bihar,” Omar told mediapersons outside his house.

On the recently concluded BRICS Summit, Omar called the joint statement condemning the 2025 Pahalgam attack a “big thing”. He said, “Please see how many allies of Pakistan were in that room. Therefore, for Pahalgam to even be mentioned is in itself a big success of our foreign policy.”

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On UCC, the J&K CM argued that when the BJP’s own allies are not on the same page, “how can they assume it will be implemented across the country? So, instead of backdoor, they should bring a Bill in Parliament.” He also said that given the reluctance of the allies, he does not believe that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will be able to get the Bill passed in the House.

‘Whole country not a BJP-ruled state’

Stating that the UCC is “not universal” if it doesn’t apply to the whole country, the CM said “the whole country is not a BJP ruled state”.

“If the UCC is applied only to BJP-ruled states, it is not a universal law,” he said. “And something that is of this nature, should not be decided by individual states, it has to be decided by the country as a whole, which is represented in Parliament,” he added.

Omar also pointed out that legislations such as “one nation, one election” or reservation, have not been brought to Parliament, “and now this one is also being routed through states.”

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On China lauding India’s foreign policy after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi, Omar said, “Why do we look for certificates from others?”

The danger with this, he added, is that “tomorrow were China to say something against our foreign policy, then what will you do?” He said, “Therefore, I think we should not give too much importance to what other countries say about our foreign policy, whether positive or negative, because we can’t cherry-pick. If they criticise us, we will say ‘don’t interfere in our foreign policy’.”