BJP’s M. Venkaiah Naidu, a legislator at the time and currently India’s vice-president, had said, ‘It is an encroachment on the affairs of a Hindu religious endowment.’ S. Jaipal Reddy of the Janata Party, who subsequently went on to have a long career in public life with the Congress party, at the time had said that ‘Government should not tamper with the funds of religious organisations. It is more difficult and sensitive to touch funds of organisations of religions other than Hinduism.
