Rahul's contest from Wayanad a fight against Left: Pinarayi Vijayan
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Sunday said Congress President Rahul Gandhi's contest in Wayanad in the state could only be seen as a move to fight the Left parties and not the BJP and asserted that the LDF would defeat him in the April 23 Lok Sabha elections.
There was no need to attach any special importance to the Congress President contesting from the state and Gandhi was just one among the 20 candidates of the opposition UDF, who are trying their luck from Kerala, he said.
"If Gandhi's fight is against the BJP, he should have contested against the saffron party. In Kerala, the fight is between LDF and UDF in the elections," Vijayan told a meet-the-press programme at the Press Club here.
He was reacting to the announcement by Congress that Gandhi would contest from the hilly Wayanad, considered a fortress of the party, in addition to the Gandhi family's pocket burrow Amethi seat in Uttar Pradesh in the polls.
"The present move can only be seen as a fight against the Left. But, we have no anxiety...we are fully confident and will strive to defeat him in Wayanad," the CPI-M veteran said.
Gandhi had announced earlier he would retain Amethi in Uttar Pradesh as his constituency after elections, he said.
"So, it is like...Gandhi will continue as the MP from Amethi and in Wayand he is examining if he can defeat the Left", the Chief Minister said asking what message the Congress was conveying to the people through the move.
When asked about the proposed post-poll alliance with the Congress at the national level, Vijayan said it was a matter to be thought off after the elections.
BJP state chief P S Sreedharan Pillai said the Congress decision to field Gandhi from Wayanad showed the "decay" in the grand old party.
"After realising that he will lose from Amethi, Gandhi has decided to contest from wayand", he told reporters here.
The BJP would give a "tough fight" to the Congress candidate, he said adding Gandhi's Wayanad contest was being viewed by the party as "acceptance of defeat".
The state Congress leaders were all in a jubilant mood over the AICC chief's decision.
Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly Ramesh Chennithala said the party'saim was to ensure Gandhi's victory with a massive margin.
"I challenge Pinarayi Vijayan, if he can defeat Rahul Gandhi in Wayanad and we accept the challenge," he told reporters at Alapuzha.
It would be a "historical win" for Gandhi in Wayanad and there would be a "Rahul wave" in the entire state, he claimed.
"A prime ministerial candidate is contesting from Kerala for the first time and this will have an impact in the entire state," he said adding the UDF would win all 20 seats.
Party's state unitPresident Mulapally Ramachandran said the decision to field Gandhi from Wayand would be "a happy news for secular-democratic forces" in the state.
He also remembered how former Congress presidents Indira Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi had scripted impressive victories from South India.
Congress leader M I Shanavas, who died in November last year, had won Wayanad, known for its picturesque locales and spices, in the 2009 and 2014 elections.
The LDF has decided to field CPIs P P Suneer in the constituency this time while BJP-NDA yet to announce its candidate.
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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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