BJP conceded that EC failed to maintain integrity of electoral rolls: Khera on 2-voter cards charge
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Pawan Khera hit back at the BJP on Tuesday after it alleged that he has two voter IDs, saying in a bid to target him and his party, it has ended up targeting the Election Commission (EC) and left the poll body "bleeding".
Khera also slammed the EC after poll authorities in Delhi issued a notice against him for allegedly getting himself registered in the electoral rolls of more than one constituency, saying while complaints of "vote chori" (vote theft) are disregarded, the election watchdog rushes to act against opposition members.
"The @DEO_NDD has issued me a notice. Yet another confirmation of how the @ECISVEEP functions to support the ruling regime. While our complaints of Vote Chori are disregarded, the EC rushes to act against opposition members," he said in a post on X.
"Why did the @ECISVEEP not issue a single notice to the 1,00,000 fake voters of Mahadevapura constituency, that were exposed by Rahul Gandhi? We will not stop exposing the EC's wrongdoings in the Bihar SIR and other election processes," the Congress leader added.
Earlier, he claimed that with his "morning stunt", BJP's IT department head Amit Malviya has "conceded" that the EC has "failed to maintain the integrity" of the electoral rolls.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged that Khera has two voter IDs and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is running a campaign against voter-roll revision in Bihar to "protect and hide" his party's "theft of votes".
In a post on X, Malviya said Gandhi screamed "vote chori" from the rooftops but just like "he forgot to mention that his mother, Sonia Gandhi, enlisted herself in India's voter list even before becoming an Indian citizen, it has now emerged that Khera, a Congress spokesperson -- who never misses a chance to flaunt his proximity to the Gandhis -- holds two active EPIC numbers".
Reacting to Malviya's post, Khera said, "I came to know from him only that I have a second EPIC card. I had applied to remove it in 2016-17, but it seems that did not happen and the EC is to be blamed for this."
"What Anurag Thakur did, Amit Malviya replicated -- they both wanted to target us, but ended up targeting the EC. This is the issue we have been raising, this is what Rahul Gandhi is saying. Now I want to know if my vote was misused in Delhi and went to the BJP. I want CCTV footage," the Congress leader told PTI Videos.
Later, in a post on X, Khera said, "Desperate for attention, Amit Malviya tried a shot at me but much to his dismay, it is the ECI that was left bleeding. Again."
"Few takeaways: After Rahul Gandhi's August 7 press conference, thousands of cases surfaced where the same or different EPIC IDs for one person are registered in multiple booths, constituencies, even states. Malviya showed no particular interest in those cases. So, it is not the integrity of the electoral rolls that he is concerned about. It is politically-motivated mudslinging," he said.
With his "morning stunt", Malviya has conceded that the EC has "failed to maintain the integrity" of the electoral rolls, he added.
"This is despite my Form 7 application to delete my name from the New Delhi constituency after shifting houses in 2016," Khera said.
"Since 2016, four elections -- 2019 Lok Sabha, 2020 Vidhan Sabha, 2024 Lok Sabha, 2025 Vidhan Sabha -- have gone by. So it is safe to assume that four 'revisions' must have also taken place. Yet, my name is still on New Delhi rolls. Which stone has the ECI been sleeping under?" he said.
"(Chief Election Commissioner) Gyanesh Gupta Ji should pick his allies wisely -- after Anurag Thakur, Amit Malviya too has found it convenient to toss him under the bus," Khera said.
Earlier, addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters here, the party's national spokesperson, Pradeep Bhandari, claimed that Khera, the Congress's media department head and Rahul Gandhi's "close associate", has two voter IDs on Delhi addresses.
"Rahul Gandhi and his close associates are chor (thieves) and making shor (noise)," Bhandari said.
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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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