Hijab row: Uniform Civil Code is need of the hour, says Union Minister Giriraj Singh

New Delhi, Feb 11: Amid the ongoing hijab row and related protests in many parts of the country, firebrand Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Minister Giriraj Singh on Friday has said that the Uniform Civil Code is the need of the hour. He said that the country needs one law that will be applicable to all communities.

"Uniform Civil Code is the need of the hour. The country is one, so there should be one law for all," he said.

Calling the UCC "need of the hour", Giriraj Singh said "attempts are being made to break the country in the name of religion and region."

"A situation is being created that the UCC has become the need of the hour," he said, calling for "one nation, one law," he added.

A Uniform Civil Code is a common set of laws governing personal matters like marriage, divorce, succession and adoption and others, instead of allowing different personal laws for people of different faiths. The aim is to ensure equality.

The BJP government has been pushing for the law in Parliament. The Uniform Civil Code had even figured in the saffron party's manifesto for the 2019 Lok Saha elections.

The hijab controversy, which first erupted in January at a government pre-university college in Udupi where six students who attended classes wearing headscarf in violation of the stipulated dress code were asked to leave the campus, has spread to different parts of Karnataka with Hindu students too responding by turning up in saffron shawls.

Such saffron-clad students are also being barred from entering classes.