BJP shortlists candidates for all 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka: Arvind Limbavali
Bengaluru, Mar 17: The BJP's Karnataka unit said Sunday that it has shortlisted candidates for all the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies and the party's central election committee would soon take a call on it.
"We have shortlisted the names of all the candidates (in Karnataka). The central election committee will take a decision on it and release the list," BJP state general secretary Arvind Limbavali told reporters.
He was speaking after the party's state core meeting here, chaired by BJP state president B S Yeddyurappa.
BJP general secretary and state unit in-charge P Muralidhar Rao, BJP organising secretary (in-charge south India) B L Santosh, former chief ministers D V Sadananda Gowda and Jagadish Shettar were among those who attended the meeting.
Limbavali said the state election committee would table the list before the central election committee, headed by its national president, but refused to divulge the names, saying the CEC would announce it later.
On the Mandya Lok Sabha seat, where Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy is pitted against multi-lingual actress Sumalatha Ambareesh, wife of late actor-turned-politician Ambareesh, he said the core committee discussed fielding a candidate.
However, the party kept its options open and would take a final call based on Sumalatha's decision, he said.
Mandya has gone to the JD(S) as per the seat-sharing agreement between the coalition partners Congress and the JD(S).
The party has planned to field Nikhil Gowda, grandson of former prime minister H D Deve Gowda and son of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy.
However, Sumalatha's decision has disturbed the political equations.
Ambareesh had represented Mandya thrice in the Lok Sabha, the first time on a JD(S) ticket and twice on Congress ticket.
He was minister of state for information and broadcasting during the UPA-1 regime.
Limbavali said senior Congress leader from Hassan, A Manju would soon join the BJP after his meeting with Yeddyurappa.
Manju had been a vocal critic of Gowda and often expressed his displeasure in respecting the Congress-JD(S) coalition.
Shortlisted Candidates:
Kolar- DS Veeraiah, Chikkaballapur-BN Bache Gowda, Bengaluru(South)-Tejaswini Ananth Kumar, Bengaluru(Center)- PC Mohan, Bengaluru(North)- Sadananda Gowda/HM Chandrashekar, Bengaluru(Rural)- CP Yogeshwar/Rudresh.
Chamarajanagar- V Srinivas Prasad, Mysore- Pratap Simha,Tumkur- GS Basavaraju, Chitradurga- A Narayanaswamy/Manappa Vajjal, Dakshina Kannada- Nalin Kumar Kateel, Hasan- A Manju, Udupi-Chikmagalur- Shobha Karandlaje, Shimoga- BY Raghavendra.
Davanagere- GM Siddeshwar, North Kannada- Anath Kumar Hegde, Darawad- Prahlad Joshi, Haveri- Shivakumar Udasi, Ballari- Devendrappa/Venkatesh Prasad, Koppala- Sanganna Karadi, Bidar- Bhagavat Khuba, Raichur- Thipparaju Havaldar/ Amareh Nayak/ Fakeerappa, Kalburgi- Dr. Umesh Jadhav.
Vijayapura- Ramesh Jigajinagi, Bagalkot- PC Gaddigoudar, Belgaum- Suresh Angadi, Chikkodi-Prabhakar Khore/Ramesh Katti names were included in the list.
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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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