Hyderabad/Lucknow: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Tuesday said the Indian Muslim community should seriously ponder over the continuance of the “triple talaq” tradition, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi denounced this practice among Muslims.

As a debate over the contentious issue of triple talaq raged, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati criticised the prime minister over his stance on the subject, saying he should not “force his opinion and decision” on the believers of any particular religion by “following the RSS agenda”.

Union I and B Minister Venkaiah Naidu said the government and BJP are “strongly” in favour of ending this practice, holding it as discriminatory against women and against the constitutional right of equality.

The RSS while asking the Muslim community to give a serious thought to triple talaq hoped that the Muslim women who have moved the court seeking abolition of this practice secure justice.

“The triple talaq issue is an internal problem of Muslims and in this context the Muslim community should seriously think over it. Muslim women have gone to court on this issue. In the present era there should not be any kind of gender-based discrimination. On talaq issue, women have gone to court and we expect that they get justice properly,” RSS All India General Secretary Bhayyaji Joshi told reporters in Hyderabad.

“The Muslim community should also think and decide on it. We feel that there is a need that the court should also give (its) views on this matter through human perspective,” Joshi said on the concluding day of the three-day All India Executive Council Meetings of RSS.

Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Centre of tinkering with issues related to Shariat, Mayawati said such matters should be left to the Muslim community and not raked up with an eye on the upcoming Assembly elections in some states for political gains.

“BJP and its central government led by Narendra Modi has now started a new controversy over Muslim personal law, triple talaq and common civil code before the Assembly elections in some states to serve its petty politics. BSP strongly condemns it,” Mayawati said in a statement in Lucknow.

“The prime minister and central government instead of interfering in the issue of triple talaq should better leave it to the Muslim community to form a common opinion,” said the former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh ahead of polls in the politically crucial state due next year.

Naidu said all discrimination against women must come to an end.

“We are a civilised and democratic country. Why should there be discrimination on the basis of gender and this triple talaq is a gender discrimination and is against the Constitution. BJP or government is strongly in favour of ending triple talaq,” Naidu told reporters in Delhi.

Breaking his silence on the contentious issue of triple talaq, Modi on Monday denounced the practice among Muslims and deprecated attempts to politicise it.

AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi on Tuesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of making triple ‘talaq’ and Ram temple the core issues of the BJP campaign to polarise voters ahead of assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and four other states.

A day after Modi spoke on the triple talaq issue, Owaisi told reporters here that Modi is talking of polarising issues to get votes (for the BJP), instead of focusing on constructive issues.

“As the matter of triple ‘talaq’ is pending before the Supreme Court, it would have been in the fitness of things that the Prime Minister had not spoken on it. However, the development clearly shows that the Bharatiya Janata Party and Modi are short of constructive ideas.”

The Lok Sabha member from Hyderabad said he wanted to know why the Prime Minister was not making election issues of governance, corruption and internal fighting in the (Mulayam Singh) Yadav family in Uttar Pradesh.

Advising Modi and his party not to malign Muslims, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader wondered why was the Prime Minister silent on the fact that compared with Muslims, other religious communities had high rate of divorce and separation.

“The Prime Minister has conveniently forgotten the 2011 Census that shows that over one crore non-Muslim girls aged 10 age or slightly above were married,” said Owaisi.