Battle for Hyderabad: Polling underway in civic polls, counting on Dec 4
Hyderabad, Dec 1: Polling got underway on Tuesday in the high-stakes Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) election following a vociferous and often acrimonious campaign.
The voting for the 150-ward GHMC began at 7 am and it would be ending at 6 pm.
A total of 74,44,260 voters will exercise their franchise using ballot papers to elect their representatives.
Union MoS (Home) G Kishan Reddy, ruling TRS working president and Telangana Municipal Administration Minister K T Rama Rao and actor-turned-politician Chiranjeevi were among the early voters.
Talking to reporters, both Kishan Reddy and Rama Rao appealed to the electors to vote without fail.
The total number of contesting candidates is 1,122.
The Telangana State Election Commission (SEC) has made elaborate arrangements for the balloting process by deploying 48,000 (including reserve) polling personnel and 52,500 strong police force.
The commission had decided to conduct the election with ballot papers after obtaining the views of major political parties and the Health Department in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and taking into consideration various relevant issues, it had said.
The commission has also made special arrangements in view of the pandemic.
The main contest in the poll is among the ruling TRS, opposition BJP and the Congress. The run-up to the polling witnessed a high decibel and often acrimonious campaign.
Buoyed by its victory in the recent bypoll to Dubbak Assembly constituency, the BJP conducted a powerful campaign to win the GHMC polls, to boost its chances in the assembly elections in 2023.
Top leaders, including Union Home Minister Amit Shah, party president J P Nadda, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union ministers Prakash Javadekar, Smriti Irani and MoS (Home) G Kishan Reddy, who is Lok Sabha member from Secunderabad, party MP and BJYM national president Tejaswi Surya participated in the campaign.
The BJP highlighted the TRS' "alliance" with the AIMIM and sought votes to provide clean and transparent governance in the city. The TRS, however, denied any alliance with the AIMIM.
The TRS' campaign was led by its working president and state Municipal Administration Minister K T Rama Rao, while party supremo and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao addressed a public meeting.
A bad loss in the GHMC elections could dent the TRS' image and bolster the opposition to step up its campaign against the ruling party.
The Congress campaign was led by its state president N Uttam Kumar Reddy and working president A Revanth Reddy and other senior leaders.
Once a major force in the state, but marginalised now, the TDP sought to revive its fortunes highlighting the development witnessed in the city, including in the IT sector, during N Chandrababu Naidu''s regime as chief minister in undivided Andhra Pradesh.
The TRS and BJP leaders were engaged in a war of words attacking each other.
The allegations continued on Monday as well with the BJP saying the ruling TRS indulged in unfair means and misuse of power to win the election.
Counting of votes will be taken up on December 4.
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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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