JD(S) to contest assembly bypolls in Karnataka, announces candidate for one seat
Bengaluru, Mar 18: Ending confusion, JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy on Thursday made it clear his party will contest April 17 bypolls to two assembly segments in Karnataka on its own and declared the candidate for Basavakalyan seat.
However, there seems to be no clarity yet about contesting Belgaum Lok Sabha byelection, with the former chief minister saying it will be decide in a couple of days.
JD(S) announced a Muslim candidate for Basavakalyan, seen as a move by the party to re-project its secular credentials, amid talks of its growing closeness to the BJP.
"We have decided to field candidates for Basavakalyan and Maski assembly constituency.....there is no question of any internal or outward understanding with any party in this polls," Kumaraswamy said.
Speaking to reporters after meeting JD(S) office bearers and leaders from both constituencies, he said, the party has taken the assembly bypolls seriously and will fight for victory.
"In Basavakalyan, after consulting our people it has been decided to field Syed Yasrab Ali Quadri - he's descendant of Basavakalyan's famous Hazrat Shah Dada Karar dargah. He was with the Congress for 15 years. He has ties with all sections of society," Kumaraswamy said.
For Maski, the candidate will be decided by Friday, he said, adding a decision on contesting Belgaum Lok Sabha seat would be taken in a couple of days after consulting local party leaders.
The bypolls will be held on April 17 and the counting of votes is slated for May 2.
By-elections to Belgaum Lok Sabha and Basavakalyan assembly seats have been necessitated by the death of Union Minister Suresh Angadi of the BJP and MLA B Narayan Rao of Congress respectively due to COVID-19 in September last year.
Maski seat fell vacant following the disqualification of MLA Prathapagouda Patil, who had won in 2018 on a Congress ticket and is now with the BJP.
Some amount of confusion had persisted about JD(S) contesting the bypolls with patriarch H D Deve Gowda stating that the party will not contest by-elections citing financial constraints while Kumaraswamy maintained it will field candidates.
Responding to a question about it, Kumaraswamy said Gowda had earlier said the party had not yet decided on fielding candidates for the bypolls. But later at a party meeting, with his permission it was decided to contest.
The JD(S) leader also noted that Raichur under which Maski constituency comes, is an extremely potential district for the party, and out of the seven assembly seats there, it can win 5-6 in the next assembly elections.
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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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