C-Voter Survey gives thumping majority to Cong in Rajasthan, simple majority in MP
New Delhi, Nov 9: With election campaign in full swing in five poll-bound states, an opinion poll by C-Voter has projected a thumping majority for the Congress with 145 seats in Rajasthan and a simple majority in Madhya Pradesh.
The Center For Voting Opinions and Trends in Election Research (C-Voter), in its November (week 2) poll has also projected a clear majority of 64 seats to the Congress-TDP combine in Telangana and a very close fight in Chhattisgarh with a slender edge for the BJP.
Polls in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana will be held between November 12 and December 7. Counting of votes will be taken up together in all the five states on December 11.
The survey in Rajasthan gave the ruling BJP only 45 seats with 39.7 per cent vote share, against 47.9 per cent of the opposition Congress.
In Madhya Pradesh, the C-Voter poll projections gave the BJP 107 seats with a vote share of 41.5 per cent, against Congress' vote share of 42.3 per cent and a simple majority of 116 seats.
The opinion poll did not give a clear majority to any party in Mizoram, with the Mizo National Front projected to lead with 17 seats, followed by the Congress with 12 seats and Zoram People's Movement (ZPM) with nine seats.
Predicting a close fight in Chhattisgarh, C-Voter poll survey gave 41 seats to the Congress with a 42.2 per cent vote share, with six seats to others and 16.2 per cent vote share. The BJP is projected to get a slightly lower 41.6 per cent vote share and 43 seats.
The poll survey of November week-2 done for ABP News and Republic TV has a total sample size of 67,848 for five states, with 13,377 in Rajasthan, 25,745 in Madhya Pradesh and 13,911 in Chhattisgarh, 13,624 in Telangana and 1191 in Mizoram.
In contrast, C-Voter has claimed that the CNX poll survey for Times Now and India TV in Rajasthan has projected 115 seats for Congress against 75 to BJP, while CSDS survey for ABP has projected 110 to Congress and 84 to BJP and Cfore poll survey for Asianet giving 130 to Congress and 65 to BJP.
For Madhya Pradesh, the agency has claimed the CNX poll survey projected 122 seats for the BJP and 95 for the Congress, with CSDS giving 116 to the saffron party and 105 to the Congress.
In Chhattisgarh, the CNX poll survey has projected that the BJP could get 50 and Congress 30 seats, with others getting 10 seats, while the CSDS poll gave 56 to the BJP, 25 to the Congress and nine to others.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said while the C-Voter survey is heartening and interesting, the situation on the ground is that the party is winning in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and also in Telangana in a resounding manner.
"We hope to cross the two-third mark in Rajasthan and hope to get close to 140 seats in Madhya Pradesh and over 50-mark in Chhattisgarh. The coalition of Congress will romp home confidently, trouncing the BJP stooge TRS in Telangana. Congress will also retain Mizoram," he told PTI.
BJP spokesperson Bizay Sonkar Shastri rejecting the opinion polls, which gave Congress an edge in some poll-bound states, asserted that his party will not only form governments in the three states ruled by it, but also be a part of the ruling dispensation in Telangana and Mizoram.
He said the BJP is heading for a "big victory" in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, and that the campaign by "our magic man", a reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will give further boost to the party's prospects.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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