New Delhi: With just 48 hours to go before Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav faces his hour of reckoning and possibly lose power, the Samajwadi Party chief pulled off a political surprise by passing a Bill in a special sitting of the UP Assembly, granting minority status to the Mohammad Ali Jauhar University.
The entire Opposition boycotted what was dubbed as the 'farewell session' of the House. The BJP members were to attend the session, but later decided to boycott the sitting terming it as 'illegal'. Yet, Mulayam went ahead with his plans to finish his leftover agenda.
The new Bill, to amend the original Act, was piloted by state parliamentary affair minister and the life-time pro-chancellor of the said university, Mohd Azam Khan.
Being set up in a 297 acre campus on the outskirts of Rampur city, the university will have separate colleges for engineering, medicine, dentistry, law, home sciences and vocational training as well as routine degree courses.
Under the new amended clause, the university will now be known as Mohammad Ali Jauhar University as a minority educational institution.
The government can de-recognise the university only by a proposal supported by three-fourth majority of both the Houses of the state legislature after an approval from the UGC.
The Mulayam Singh government had tabled a Bill in 2004 to set up the university in Rampur under government sector. But Governor TV Rajeswar had sent it for Presidential Reference. The President wrote that instead of making arrangements for a life-time pro-chancellor, the government should appoint a person for five years and make the policy more transparent.
Azam Khan later initiated fresh moves to set up the university in the private sector, for which he got the governor's green signal.
In 2005, the university was set up under private sector. Therefore, the state government sought the House's approval to withdraw the earlier Bill to set up the university under government sector.
Coming just four days before the term of the House expires; it was the timing of the Bill that made history. The last time such a thing happened was in 1957 when the House had met to seek a vote of account on an interim budget for the state just three days before the expiry of the term of the second Assembly.
The BJP protested against the new bill, terming it as 'illegal'. BJP Chief Whip Lakshmi Kant Bajpai said the tabling of the Bill should have been left to the next Assembly. "With elections over and counting due on May 11, what is the point in tabling a Bill at this moment,'' he asked.
(With agency inputs)
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