VP election: Oppn MPs to participate in mock poll, Kharge to host dinner on Monday
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New Delhi (PTI): Opposition MPs would be briefed on Monday on the procedure to vote in the September 9 vice presidential polls, and will be hosted for dinner by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge the same evening, sources in the INDIA bloc said on Sunday.
They said a 'mock poll' would be conducted in the Central Hall of the Samvidhan Sadan at around 2:30 PM on Monday after the briefing on the procedure to vote in the vice presidential polls.
At around 7:30 PM, Congress president Kharge will host a dinner for the opposition MPs at the Parliament annexe, the sources said.
It is a direct contest between ruling NDA nominee C P Radhakrishnan and joint opposition candidate B Sudershan Reddy on September 9. Both candidates this time hail from southern India, with Radhakrishnan from Tamil Nadu and Reddy from Telangana.
The vice-presidential election has been described by the Opposition as an ideological battle, even as the numbers are stacked in favour of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
Rajya Sabha Secretary General P C Mody, who is the returning officer for the vice-presidential election, has said that the polling will take place on Tuesday in Room No. F-101, Vasudha, Parliament House.
The polling will commence at 10 AM and close at 5 PM on September 9.
"The electoral college for election to the Office of the Vice-President of India consists of the Members of both Houses of Parliament. The nominated Members of Rajya Sabha are also eligible to be included in the Electoral College and, therefore, are entitled to participate in the election.
"The polling arrangements in Parliament House are being made by Shri P.C. Mody, the Returning Officer for the Vice-Presidential Election, 2025, and Secretary-General, Rajya Sabha," the statement from Rajya Sabha secretariat said.
"The counting of votes will commence at 6 PM on the same day and the result will be declared immediately thereafter," it said.
While Radhakrishnan is a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran from Tamil Nadu and the governor of Maharashtra currently, Reddy is a former Supreme Court judge.
Reddy (79), who retired from the apex court in July 2011, is a veteran jurist known for several landmark judgments criticising the then Union government for showing slackness in probing black-money cases. He had also declared Salwa Judum, appointed by the Chhattisgarh government to fight Naxals, as unconstitutional.
As an apex court judge, Reddy ordered the formation of a special investigation team to take all steps for bringing back unaccounted monies unlawfully kept in bank accounts abroad.
For the 17th vice-presidential election, the electoral college consists of 233 elected members of the Rajya Sabha (five seats are currently vacant), 12 nominated members of the Rajya Sabha and 543 elected members of the Lok Sabha (one seat is currently vacant).
The electoral college comprises a total of 788 members (781 presently).
The Congress-led opposition is projecting Reddy as a consistent and courageous champion of social, economic and political justice. Reddy has had a long and eminent legal career, including as a judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, the chief justice of the Gauhati High Court and a judge of the Supreme Court. He also led the committee that undertook the caste survey in Telangana.
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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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