Telugu Desam Party's (TDP) General Secretary, Nara Lokesh, urged the Union Ministry of Education and the University Grants Commission (UGC) to prevent the abuse of state universities for conducting politically motivated events and job melas in Andhra Pradesh. He stressed the need for stringent action to restrain the ruling YSRCP from misusing public universities to provide jobs to its party activists in private companies.
Seeking urgent action, Lokesh wrote separate letters to the UGC Chairman as well as to the Secretary, the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Education, Delhi. He pointed out that the YSRCP's job melas in educational institutions were in total violation of the constitutional principles and established ethical norms.
Lokesh said that on April 1 this year, Rajya Sabha MP Vijayasai Reddy V announced that the YSRCP will be conducting job melas in three universities including Andhra University (Visakhapatnam), Sri Venkateswara University (Tirupati) and Acharya Nagarjuna University (Guntur district).
The YSRCP had no qualms in admitting that the job melas were their party activity under the specific orders of the AP Chief Minister, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, claimed Lokesh, adding that these melas were conducted to benefit the YSRCP cadre and those who worked for its win in the 2019 elections.
Lokesh said Vijayasai had also promised to provide 15,000 to 25,000 jobs in private companies to candidates with qualifications of Class X and above. He had also launched a website called ysrcpjobmela.com for this purpose.
"This violates multiple constitutional principles. One, government institutions are being utilised for a YSRCP party activity. Two, by limiting the opportunities to only YSRC party cadre and followers, the government is clearly neglecting lakhs of other graduates who remain unemployed," he said.
Lokesh recalled that as per the report of the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), the unemployment rate among graduates in AP has risen to 35 per cent now. This was alarmingly the highest in South India and the fourth highest in India. In this situation, it is shocking that the ruling YSRCP is conducting a job mela meant only for its own cadre and followers.
Lokesh termed it unpardonable that the YSRCP was giving a signal that party loyalty would supersede the quality of education and college background. Warning about the erosion of ethics and values in educational institutions, he urged UGC to take immediate action so that this doesn't set a bad precedent for other states.
