BJP-led NDA to secure more than 350 seats in 2024 LS polls: Pradhan
Bhubaneswar (PTI): Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday said the BJP-led NDA will secure more than 350 seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and return to power at the Centre under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Pradhan also asserted that the BJP would form the government in Odisha next year but he refused to divulge who would be the party’s face here.
“The NDA will complete its 25th anniversary in 2024 and it will secure more than 350 seats in the Lok Sabha polls,” Pradhan said at an interactive session of the Odisha Literary Festival.
Asked about the Odisha Assembly elections due next year, he said the "BJP will form the government" in the state.
He said the saffron party had won elections in states like Maharashtra, Haryana and other places without making any announcement on the party's chief ministerial candidate before the polls.
“Here (Odisha) also, we will win polls in the same manner,” Pradhan said, adding that he would not divulge more on the BJP’s strategies on the public platform.
Replying to another question, Pradhan, the Union education minister, said there is nothing wrong in inviting foreign universities to India.
"Our 10 lakh students go abroad to study," he said, adding that there should not be any hesitation in inviting foreign universities to India.
“The UGC will soon bring the foreign university regulation policy. It is in the process. We have no complexities in bringing foreign universities. We want to bring the best of world universities to India on our terms and conditions," he said.
Pradhan said Indian institutes also go abroad to set up their campus.
For instance, he said, IIT Chennai has opened its branch in Tanzania in Africa and IIT, Delhi is going to Abu Dhabi in UAE.
“We should not deprive Indian students of global technological knowledge. There should be no discrimination when it comes to acquiring knowledge,” Pradhan added
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
