Important announcements regarding seat sharing, tickets on Sunday: Bihar BJP chief Dilip Jaiswal
Patna (PTI): Bihar BJP chief Dilip Jaiswal on Saturday said that the central leadership of the party will make important announcements regarding seat sharing with NDA constituents and tickets for the upcoming assembly polls on Sunday.
Addressing a press conference here, the senior BJP leader dismissed speculations about rumblings of discontent among NDA constituents in the state.
"Everything is fine in the NDA... seat-sharing arrangements and the list of candidates will soon be decided by the party's central leadership, which will make important announcements related to seat sharing and tickets at 11 am on Sunday," Jaiswal said in a press conference here.
Earlier in the day, NDA constituent Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) chief Upendra Kushwaha also dismissed the speculations about discontent and said that talks for seat sharing have not yet concluded.
The former Union minister, in an X post, said, "Don't pay attention to rumours floating around. The talks are not yet concluded. Wait...! I don't know how the news is being circulated in the media. If someone is planting news, it's deceit, it's betrayal."
Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi had earlier said that he was "requesting and not making a claim" that his Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) be given a respectable number of seats, otherwise the party might not contest the election.
Another Union minister, Chirag Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), which had earlier settled for around 20-22 seats, is now reportedly asking for at least 25 more.
Assembly elections in the state will be held on November 6 and 11, while votes will be counted on November 14.
"It will be a humiliation for me and my party if we are not given at least 15 seats in the coming assembly polls. If we get 15, we can easily win at least 8-9 seats and will become a recognised party," Manjhi had said.
Even after 10 years of establishment, HAM remains an unrecognised party.
"I have been helping the NDA for a long time. So, I am requesting the NDA leaders and not making a claim. My party would prefer not to contest the polls, if we don't get a respectable number of seats.
“But I must make it clear that even if we don't contest polls, our party will keep working for the NDA partners in the coming polls," Manjhi said.
According to sources in the NDA, the bigger allies JD(U) and the BJP are likely to contest 102 and 101 seats, respectively.
LJP (Ram Vilas), which had earlier settled for around 20-22 seats, is now asking for at least 25 more. Senior leaders in the LJP (RV) are of the opinion that the party should get at least 45 seats, said a party leader on the condition of anonymity.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
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.”
_vb_22.jpeg)
