‘Vote chor’ NDA govt also ‘zameen chor’ in Bihar, alleges Cong leader Kanhaiya Kumar
Patna (PTI): Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar on Saturday alleged that the NDA government which was formed through “vote chori” is also a “zameen chor (land grabber)” in Bihar.
He was referring to the NDA government at the Centre providing more than 1000 acres of land to the Adani Group allegedly at a “throwaway price” for setting up a power plant in Bihar’s Bhagalpur.
“The government formed through vote chori is also 'zameen chor, munafa khor (profiteer) and bachat chor' (revenue thief),” Kumar alleged at a press conference here.
The NDA government in Bihar is hell bent on diverting Bihar’s resources to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s friends, he claimed.
Kumar said that the state Congress has initiated a series, “20 Saal, 20 Sawaal” (20 years, 20 questions), under which party leaders will question and “expose” the government on various issues concerning the people of Bihar.
The opposition party is alluding to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s 20-year rule of the state.
On the first day of the campaign, Kanhaiya Kumar raised questions on the allotment of 1,000 acres of land, allegedly at a rate of Re 1 per acre in Bhagalpur, to the Adani group.
Kumar claimed, “The Central government has diverted Rs 21,000 crore, allotted for a power plant project in the state, towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s friend Adani.”
The project, initiated by the UPA government, has been hijacked by the NDA, the Congress leader alleged.
Kumar claimed that the Rs 1 lakh crore revenue accruing from the project, which was meant to benefit the people of Bihar, will now be appropriated by a corporate house.
“Adani has been signing power plant contracts at the promise of offering electricity at Rs 3-3.5 per unit elsewhere in the country, but when it comes to Bihar, the cost has been fixed over Rs 6 per unit,” he claimed.
Kumar said, “Even if the price was fixed at Rs 5 per unit, Bihar would have saved Rs 56,000 crore. The irony is that the government took the land from people at an old rate and has offered it to a corporate house by agreeing to new rates for electricity”.
The entire episode, Kumar summed up, leaves people with three questions: “Why was the corporate house given the land at a throwaway price? Why has the profit of Rs 1 lakh crore been diverted from the Bihar people to the corporate house? Why has the cost of electricity been fixed so high in the state as part of the project deal?”
He alleged that the government is planning to grab people’s land in Bihar under the guise of conducting a land survey.
The Congress leader said, “The government is acting as a ‘lathaith’ (a person adept in using sticks); it uses the sticks of governance and administration to benefit corporates at the cost of the poor people.”
He wondered what the “sick, useless double-engine government” had done for the people of the state in the last 20 years.
The Congress leader also criticised the NDA government for allegedly organising an RSS event at Rajasthan University on September 30, using people’s money.
“The university is a government property and cannot be allowed to become a breeding ground of any particular ideology,” he asserted.
Kumar alleged that NSUI protestors, who opposed the event in the BJP-ruled state, were harassed by the police.
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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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