Yeddyurappa says no mid-term polls; asks coalition govt to quit if they can't govern state
Bengaluru, June 22: Ruling out any mid-term polls, Karnataka BJP President B S Yeddyurappa Saturday said the Congress-JD(S) coalition government would not survive for long because of internal differences and asked it to quit if they were not able to govern the state.
"I have already said this clearly as the state president.
We are 105 MLAs.
There are more than 20 disgruntled (MLAs) in Congress-JD(S). If you don't have the capability to run the administration, resign," Yeddyurappa said.
Speaking to reporters here, he said voters of the state would not agree for another election, 13 months after the assembly polls.
"Taking such decisions with selfish motives is not right.
Resign and go home, we will run the administration- I have already said this...
According to me, this government will not survive for long if you look at their infighting," he added.
Yeddyurappa's statement comes a day after former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda Friday said there was no doubt there would be mid-term polls to the state assembly.
Gowda had also said he did not know how long the Congress-JD(S) government, headed by his son H D Kumaraswamy, would continue and it was in the hands of the senior coalition partner.
State BJP in-charge Muralidhar Rao said the coalition government was against the mandate of the people and freeing Karnataka from it was his party's agenda and programme.
"We have to complete the incomplete work in Karnataka.
After winning 105 seats, we are not in government. Those with 38 seats are running the government.
This is a mockery of the public mandate...this government is against the mandate of the people, it is against the interests of Karnataka," he said, addressing party workers.
"BJP will leave no stone unturned to free Karnataka at the earliest from this government. This is our agenda, our programme," he added.
There is growing discomfort within the ruling alliance after the rout in the Lok Sabha polls.
Congress and JD(S) that had faced the polls in alliance managed to win one seat each, while BJP won 25 seats.
The saffron party supported independent candidate Sumalatha Ambareesh won in Mandya.
Coalition leaders fear that using disgruntlement within as an opportunity, BJP may try to topple the government by 'poaching' its MLAs, who are unhappy with the government and are miffed over not getting Ministerial posts.
Yeddyurappa also hit out at Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy’s "Grama Vastavaiya" (overnight stay in villages) programme to make the administration more effective, terming it as a "political circus".
"After doing one day of Grama Vastavya and making false promises, citing rains there as a reason, he has come back via Hyderabad, without doing today's Grama Vastavaiya.This is a kind of political circus," he said.
Kumaraswamy was scheduled to hold his Grama Vastavya at Herur village in Kalaburagi rural taluk on Saturday, but it was postponed due to heavy rains that lashed the district on Friday evening.
He had done his Grama Vastavya at Chandaraki village in Yadgir district on Friday.
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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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