He said Mr Gandhi should provide concrete evidence backing his claim (File)
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan hit back at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for his criticism of the draft UGC guidelines on "de-reservation" of posts in higher education institutions, saying his politics is completely based on lies.
The draft guidelines triggered a political controversy with Gandhi alleging a "conspiracy" to end the reservation given to SC, ST and OBC categories and the Congress demanding the dismissal of UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar.
Mr Pradhan said Mr Gandhi should either provide concrete evidence backing his claim or publicly apologise for his lies.
In a post on X, the minister said, "Rahul Gandhi's politics is completely based on lies. As soon as one lie is exposed, they rise up with another lie. The list of false statements made by him is endless. Now Rahul Gandhi and Congress party are telling a new lie regarding appointment to reserved posts in higher education. But this lie of his has also been exposed." The minister said that of the 6,080 appointments made, the participation of Scheduled Caste (SC) is 14.3 per cent, Scheduled Tribe (ST) 7 per cent and Other Backward Classes (OBC) is 23.42 per cent.
It is clear from the data that the maximum number of appointments in reserved posts in central universities have been made under the Narendra Modi government, the minister said.
"Therefore, the false propaganda being spread by Rahul Gandhi that in these appointments SCs are only 7.1%, STs are 1.6% and OBCs are 4.5% is a complete lie. The Congress has an old habit of dividing society and creating instability by spreading lies. The basic character of Congress is anti-SC-ST-OBC. While in power, Congress has always openly opposed the interests of the deprived classes," he said.
The anti-SC-ST-OBC face of the Congress and its leaders has once again come to the fore at a time the Narendra Modi government is ensuring empowerment of deprived sections, he said.
Stepping up attack, the Congress on Monday demanded the dismissal of UGC Chairman Kumar over the draft guidelines for "de-reservation" of posts in higher education institutions, with party leader Gandhi alleging it was a "conspiracy" to end the reservation given to SC, ST and OBC categories.
The party had on Sunday demanded the immediate withdrawal of the UGC's draft guidelines proposing that any vacancy reserved for SC, ST and OBC candidates can be "declared unreserved" if enough candidates from these categories are not available.
In a post in Hindi on X, Mr Gandhi claimed it was an attempt by BJP and RSS to "eliminate" the participation of deprived sections and the party demanded that Kumar should apologise to the entire backward classes.
"In the new draft of UGC, there is a conspiracy to end the reservation given to SC, ST and OBC categories in higher education institutions.
"Today, out of approximately 7000 reserved posts in 45 central universities, 3000 are vacant, and of which only 7.1 per cent are Dalit, 1.6 per cent are tribal and 4.5 per cent are backward class professors.
"The BJP-RSS, which have even talked about reviewing reservation, now want to snatch the jobs of the deprived classes from such higher education institutions," Mr Gandhi alleged.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)