Krishna Byre Gowda is the Congress candidate in Bangalore North
JD(S) gives Bangalore North LS seat to Congress
Bengaluru, Mar 25: Karnataka minister Krishna Byre Gowda was Monday named the Congress candidate for Bangalore North Lok Sabha seat, which its coalition partner JD(S) gave back to it.
The decision to field Gowda, Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, was taken at a meeting attended by Congress legislature party leader Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara and KPCC President Dinesh Gundu Rao, according to the CLP leader's office.
The choice of Byre Gowda was telephonically conveyed to JDS patriarch H D Deve Gowda, who also gave his consent, it said.
The Congress earlier in the day said the JD(S) conceded the seat and thanked Deve Gowda for the gesture.
The announcement was made with just two days left for filing of nominations for the first phase of polls in Karnataka to be held on April 18.
AICC General Secretary in-charge of Karnataka K C Venugopal thanked Deve Gowda for the move calling it a "kind gesture."
"Indian National Congress is thankful to Shri H D DeveGowda ji and the JD(S) for their kind gesture of giving back the Bengaluru North Lok Sabha seat to the Congress.
Together,let us reclaim democracy," Venugopal said in a post on hisFacebook page.
Tuesday is the last date for the filing of nominations for the first phase of Lok Sabha polls.
Bangalore North, which will go for polls in the first phase, is one among the eight seats that the JD(S) had got in a seat-sharing deal with the Congress that will contest in 20 out of total 28 seats in the state.
The move by JD(S) to concede the Bangalore North seat to the Congress comes after Deve Gowda on Saturday made official his decision to contest polls from Tumkur.
Though there was pressure within the JD(S) for their party supremo to contest from Bangalore North, it was apprehensive about Congress' complete support there as most party's MLA there are considered close to Gowda's bete noire Siddaramaiah.
It was feared that the MLAs may seek to take revenge for the former Chief Minister's defeat from Chamundeshwari in the 2018 assembly polls.
According to sources, the JD(S) decided to give up the seat to the Congress on not finding any suitable candidate in the party from the seat.
Union Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, who was representing the seat from BJP, has been fielded once again by the party from the constituency.
He filed his nomination on Monday.
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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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