Get ready to fight bypolls alone, don't depend on alliance: Mayawati to BSP leaders
New Delhi: BSP chief Mayawati on Monday said the Lok Sabha poll drubbing in Uttar Pradesh was due to the "poor performance" of the alliance with the SP and asked party leaders and workers to be prepared to contest the assembly by-elections on their own, remarks that have raised questions over the future of the 'gathbandhan'.
At a meeting of the Bahujan Samaj Party's Uttar Pradesh unit here, she also asked office bearers, MLAS and newly-elected MPs to not depend on the alliance to win votes but to improve the party's organisation.
According to some of those present in the meeting, Mayawati also referred to the family feud in the Yadav clan, saying after Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh Yadav's younger brother Shivpal decided to contest separately the community votes were not transferred to the BSP, and the SP could not even save its "family seats".
While Akhilesh Yadav's wife Dimple lost the election by over 12,000 votes in Kannauj, his two cousins Dharmendra Yadav and Akshay Yadav also lost from
Badaun and Ferozabad constituencies respectively.
Significantly, the BSP got 10 seats in this Lok Sabha polls as against 2014 polls when it could not even manage one seat.
She told the gathering at the party headquarters here that the BSP won 10 seats in UP due to its traditional vote bank and the votes of Samajwadi Party could not get transferred to its candidates.
However, Mayawati did not directly talked about the future of the alliance with Akhilesh Yadav's SP and only asked the party workers to adopt a "wait and watch" policy till the their family dispute was over, according to BSP sources.
"Neither did she criticise the SP or Akhilesh, nor did she say that the alliance was over or as good as over," a source said.
When asked about Mayawati's comments, SP Spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhry told PTI: "We will wait to know about official stand of the BSP on alliance's performance in the Lok Sabha elections, after that we will decide what we have to do."
A total of 11 assembly bypolls are due in UP after the respective MLAs won the Lok Sabha polls. While nine BJP MLAs emerged victorious in the LS polls, one each from the BSP and the SP were elected to the lower house.
She cited "poor performance" of its alliances in various states during assembly and Lok Sabha elections to emphasis that the BSP will have to strengthen its own organisational structure and not to depend on other parties to win votes in the assembly bypolls.
Mayawati's comments to the party unit assumes significance as the BSP does not usually contest bypolls.
At the time of the alliance, Akhilesh Yadav had said the alliance of his party with the BSP would last till UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was sent back to Gorakhpur as mahant of (Gorakhnath) temple.
"No matter how much you try, this alliance is not going to break. The alliance will go a long way. We have not forged this alliance only to oust Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the Centre... we will not keep quiet until he and his disciple Yogi are unseated from power," Yadav had said.
Mayawati also pressed for the need to increase the involvement of members of other backward classes in the party organisation by reviving district-level committees.
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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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