LS polls: BJP announces four more candidates for Karnataka
Bengaluru, Mar 24: Former Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar and former Karnataka Assembly Speaker Vishveshwar Hegde Kageri are among the four candidates in the BJP's second list for Karnataka on Sunday.
As expected, Shettar will contest from Belgaum (Belagavi) constituency, while Kageri will fight from Uttara Kannada district, replacing sitting MP Anantkumar Hegde.
According to the list released by the party in New Delhi, the other two candidates fielded by the party are former Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar from Chikkaballapura and Raja Amareshwara Naik from Raichur.
Shettar assumed different positions right from party state president, leader of the opposition, assembly speaker and chief minister of Karnataka.
A staunch RSS man, Shettar quit the BJP in 2023 when he was denied a ticket in the assembly election. In less than a year, he was back to his parent organisation.
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Shettar wanted to contest the Lok Sabha election from Haveri constituency but the party decided to field him from Belagavi.
Kageri's selection was also on the anvil as the party had made up its mind to find a suitable replacement to Anantkumar Hegde, who had caused much embarrassment to the party time and again.
Kageri, a six-time MLA, is well known for his balanced views, his strong footing in the RSS ideology and well-weighed words. He hails from Sirsi in Uttara Kannada district.
As Union Minister of State, Hedge, on December 26, 2017, said that the BJP came to power to change the Constitution triggering a nationwide uproar. Later, he had to apologise for his comment.
Recently, Hegde said the BJP's call for winning more than 400 seats in the Lok Sabha was to bring amendments to the Constitution. This led to sharp reactions from various quarters.
A three-time MLA, Dr K Sudhakar is a well known name in Chikkaballapura. He lost the 2023 assembly election from Chikkaballapura assembly constituency.
He was previously with the Congress but resigned from the assembly in 2019, a year after winning the election.
A medical professional Sudhakar was among the 18 disqualified MLAs who later joined the BJP.
He successfully contested the 2019 bypoll and during COVID-19 pandemic he was given the health and medical education portfolio.
The BJP has so far announced candidates for 24 Lok Sabha constituencies.
The general elections in Karnataka will be held in two phases on April 26 and May 7 for 28 constituencies.
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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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