Rahul Gandhi to launch 'Vote Adhikar Yatra' in Bihar on Aug 17
Patna (PTI): Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will on Sunday launch a yatra to highlight the alleged assault on the people’s right to vote through the special intensive revision of electoral rolls in Bihar, a senior party leader said on Saturday.
Addressing a press conference here, former state Congress president Akhilesh Prasad Singh said Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, is likely to be in the state for over a fortnight till the ‘Vote Adhikar Yatra’ concludes with a rally in Patna on September 1.
“Tomorrow, Gandhi will launch the yatra from Sasaram. All the necessary permission has been obtained from the authorities concerned. The yatra will build a tempo in favour of the INDIA bloc ahead of the assembly polls,” the Rajya Sabha MP said.
Replying to a query, he said Gandhi was likely to “stay in Bihar for nearly 15 days” to lead the yatra, which will cover “25 districts of the state” with three “break days” on August 20, 25 and 31.
“At Sasaram, Rahul Gandhi is likely to be joined by Tejashwi Yadav, the Leader of the Opposition in Bihar, besides our other alliance partners, including three Left parties. For the final rally in Patna on September 1, we will try to bring leaders of as many like-minded parties as possible,” Singh said.
“We have been left with no option, but to hit the streets. Our pleas for a discussion on the sensitive issue in Parliament have fallen on deaf ears. The behaviour of the Election Commission reminds us of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s warning that the Constitution faced the greatest threat from those who were either stupid or cunning,” he said.
All parties, including NDA partners like Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, have voiced concerns over the special intensive revision, as part of which names of “lakhs of people have been deleted from the electoral rolls”, Singh asserted.
“Only two parties, the BJP and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JD(U), have not spoken a word on the issue. In any case, the government headed by Kumar, who has an alliance with the BJP, is all set to be voted out in the upcoming elections. The people of the state are fed up with the current regime,” he claimed.
Asked about Union minister Giriraj Singh’s fulminations against the proposed yatra of Gandhi, the Congress leader replied with a chuckle: “Yesterday, he and I came here from Delhi by the same plane. He was very much sharing our concerns about special intensive revision. But, in public, he has to toe the party line.”
Meanwhile, the RJD launched a two-and-a-half-minute song, with lyrics in a mix of Hindi and Bhojpuri, in a bid to project the key role Tejashwi Yadav is expected to play in the yatra.
In the video of the song, Yadav is seen sharing the space with Gandhi, and hailed as a leader who was vigilant and willing to rouse the people, and ensure “nobody’s right to vote is snatched and the spirit of freedom is never lost”.
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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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