BJP-RSS has shut doors of opportunities for poor; now they want to steal votes: Rahul in Bihar
Katihal (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday deplored "attempts to steal votes" in Bihar, ahead of upcoming assembly polls, in favour of the BJP which has allegedly "shut doors of opportunities" for the poor since coming to power at the Centre.
The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, who has been touring the state as part of "Voter Adhikar Yatra", addressed a rally in Katihar district late in the evening.
Waving a copy of the Constitution, he said, "This book authored by Babasaheb Ambedkar may have been less than a century old, but the ideas it stands for have been around for millennia. But the BJP and the RSS are opposed to those ideas".
The BJP and the RSS believe that Dalits must not be emancipated, the extremely backward classes must not be allowed to move up the social ladder and women should not be given more freedom; and so they are hell bent upon destroying this Constitution, alleged Gandhi.
The former Congress president said, "The BJP-RSS stand for a model in which all power is concentrated in the hands of one organisation and all wealth is controlled by a few big business houses like Ambani and Adani. This has resulted in shutting of doors of opportunities for the deprived sections".
Earlier, the Dalits, the EBCs and minorities could fancy a career in the public sector undertakings and in the armed forces as a way to come out of the clutches of backwardness, but now that option is closed, he claimed.
Gandhi said that in an apparent reference to the Narendra Modi government's stress on privatisation and the introduction of Agniveer scheme a few years ago.
He also said, "Even the option of starting a business seems out of the question. Big defaulters can still get loans worth billions from banks, which would shoo away a humble entrepreneur from Bihar. These defaulters also end up getting more relief in the form of a waiver of their debt.
The Rae Bareli MP alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shan and the RSS, to further their agenda, have been trying to snatch away a precious right bestowed upon the people through the Constitution.
“Every person has one vote and all votes are equal. They are trying to steal votes," he claimed.
"Votes were stolen in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Haryana. We have flagged before the Election Commission instances of hundreds of people having been shown living in the same house and lakhs of voters having been added in the electoral rolls of Maharashtra, after the Lok Sabha polls,” Gandhi said.
It appeared that all the new votes went to the BJP, in a state where we had beaten them in the Lok Sabha polls just a few months ago, he alleged.
“We shared our concerns with the EC and, upon being told that there was an unusually high turnout in the evening hours, sought CCTV footage for verification. But the laws were tweaked by the Modi government in no time to deny us the right to inspect those tapes," the Congress leader said.
"Now, attempts are being made to steal votes, in a similar fashion, in Bihar, through the special intensive revision of electoral rolls. This is the reason why we decided to carry out the Voter Adhikar Yatra. The response over the last five days has been electrifying", said Gandhi.
However, he added, the media would try to tell a different story.
“The media is controlled by people who are more interested in wasting their screen time on obscenely lavish weddings of people with deep pockets and their ostentatious lifestyles. I would request you all to do a little experiment. Just chant after me: ‘vote chor, gaddi chor’ (stealer of votes, give up power)".
After roars from the crowds reverberated through the area, Gandhi said, "Lakhs of people seem to have come here so late in the evening. But the media will not like to show these. So I want you all to stick to your guns and be aware of the forces that are arraigned against you".
Notably, this was the first instance since August 17, when the Yatra was launched at Sasaram, for Gandhi to address a rally from a make-shift stage.
The Congress leader, who has covered eight districts before reaching Katihar, a Congress stronghold, had so far been making addresses from atop his open vehicle, speaking into a hand-held mic.
Those who spoke before him included the INDIA bloc's de facto chief ministerial candidate Tejashwi Yadav, who called the BJP-led NDA a full form for "nahi denge adhikar (will deny your rights), and CPI(ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya.
Others present on the occasion included Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Sivakumar, local Congress MP Tariq Anwar, and Shakil Ahmed Khan, the Congress legislative party leader whose Kadwa constituency happened to be the place where the rally was held before Gandhi left for the adjoining Purnea district.
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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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