Congress MP and All India Mahila Congress chief Sushmita Dev, on Thursday, said the Congress will abolish the criminalisation of triple talaq if voted to power in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, reports said. Speaking at the Congress's minority convention in New Delhi, where party chief Rahul Gandhi also spoke later, Dev said the Congress vows to remove the triple talaq law.

The Congress's onslaught on the abolition of triple talaq is not new and has been sustained through August 2017, when a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court pronounced the practice of talaq-e-biddat or instant triple talaq as unconstitutional.

As women's rights activists across the country lauded the judgment for striking down the patriarchal practice, Rahul had said that the Congress had an issue with the "criminalisation" aspect in the bill.

The Congress has long since alleged that the BJP is only looking to further its anti-Muslim agenda and aims to please its core right-wing vote bank in abolishing the triple talaq. In the back and forth that emerged while the bill made its way through the apex court and the two Houses of the Parliament, both parties have accused each other in using the bill to assuage their own vote banks.  Many BJP-ruled states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were scheduled to go for polls in 2018, when the BJP aimed to pass the bill.

Now that the Congress has announced that it would abolish the bill if it comes to power, questions may arise as to whether it is a pre-poll stance of the party as well.

The criminalisation aspect has been used by the party as the fulcrum of its opposition to the bill. It also allows the party to be vague about its stand on the abolition of the practice.

Early in 2018, as the BJP made to move the bill in the Parliament during the Winter Session, Sushmita Dev herself had said criminalising the practice "will alienate the Muslim community more" than it already has been. However, when the Bill was taken up for passage, the Congress did not vote against the bill.

The Lok Sabha, on 27 December, 2018, passed the triple talaq bill, officially known as the  the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018, with 245 votes in favour and 11 against it. The Congress staged a walkout, along with the AIADMK.

In Rajya Sabha, the party opposed the passage of the bill as it was then, demanding that it be sent to a select committee.

The bill has since then been pending, compelling the Centre to promulgate an ordinance banning the practice of instant triple talaq but including certain safeguards to ensure that the proposed law is not misused. Under the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2019, issued on 13 January this year, divorcing through instant triple talaq will be illegal, void and will attract a jail term of three years for the husband.