Shah sets 2029 as the line for a Uniform Civil Code in all 21 NDA states

Amit Shah told reporters in Mumbai on Sunday that every state government run by the BJP and its National Democratic Alliance partners would introduce a Uniform Civil Code before the 2029 Lok Sabha election. "We have introduced UCC in several states and I am confident that in the 21 BJP-NDA-governed states, we will introduce UCC before 2029," he said, standing with Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde.

The code is a single set of rules on marriage, divorce, inheritance and adoption for every citizen, with tribal custom carved out in the drafts that have already moved. Uttarakhand brought its law into force in January 2025, the first state to do so after Independence. Gujarat passed a bill in March 2026. Assam passed one in May 2026. Madhya Pradesh has also passed a text. Those three are waiting for presidential assent and notification. Maharashtra, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan have set up drafting committees. Shah's sentence turns that scatter of bills into a deadline.

The NDA currently governs states and union territories that hold about 72 percent of India's population. A state-by-state code is not a national code. Personal law is on the Concurrent List. A state statute binds that state. Citizens who marry or inherit across a state line will still meet two systems until Parliament writes one law for the country. The BJP manifesto in 2024 promised a national UCC. Shah on Sunday promised the state version first, and only in the states the alliance already runs.

He tied the pledge to earlier social legislation. Triple talaq was abolished, he said, to give Muslim women equal rights. Article 370 was removed. He also used the same briefing to say the government would deport illegal infiltrators, including Bangladeshis, and that talks on a National Register of Citizens in Manipur were still open with allies. Asked about the 1951 baseline for that register, he said a decision would be announced once discussions finished.

Opposition parties have called the UCC a project aimed at Muslim personal law rather than a general civil reform. Shah did not engage that argument in Mumbai. He listed the code next to the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and a claimed 30 percent conviction rate in its first year, as part of a 12-year reform account. He also announced a 30-day Seva Sankalp Abhiyan from 17 September to mark Narendra Modi's 25 years in top administrative office.

Three clocks now run at once. Presidential assent for Gujarat, Assam and Madhya Pradesh. Drafting in the committee states. And the 2029 campaign, which will treat any state still without a code as a broken promise. Tribal exemptions already written into the Uttarakhand model will be the template others copy. The hard cases are marriage age, inheritance shares and the status of live-in relationships, all of which vary in the drafts now circulating.

Shah did not say Parliament would move a Union bill before 2029. He said 21 states would. That is a smaller, more reachable claim. It is also the claim that will be counted, state by state, when the next national campaign begins.