Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav’s younger daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav has welcomed the triple talaq bill criminalising instant divorce by Muslim men.

She said it was a major move of the government and the bill should be passed in the Rajya Sabha also.

Aparna Yadav’s views on the triple talaq bill are in contradiction to her party’s official stand, which says that the bill is an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to politicise the issue.

On December 27, during the debate on triple talaq bill in the Lok Sabha, Samajwadi Party’s Dharmendra Yadav had said that triple talaq was a social issue and the BJP was trying to politicise the matter.

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018 was passed by the Lok Sabha with 245 MPs voting in favour and 11 opposing it. Other than the Samajwadi Party, the AIADMK, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress MPs staged a walkout.

Aparna praised the Centre’s effort in getting the bill passed in the Lok Sabha. She stressed that “if we look at the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, we find that women are not safe in our country, especially in Uttar Pradesh. Not only women, even men should also be aware of the laws and punishment meant for protection of women,” she said.

The triple talaq bill was brought in Parliament in August last year after a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court termed as unconstitutional the law that allowed Muslim men to divorce their wives simply by uttering ‘talaq’ three times in quick succession.