Recently government of India has announced “no fee” for SC/ST students in prestigious IITs. Along with that no fees also for handicap candidates. In order to make up for the revenue loss they have hiked the fee for General category and OBC candidates. Although there is a 66% concession for students from families with annual income less than Rs 5 lakhs.
This should be seen as continuation of BJP’s “go socialism” way ever since it introduced it strongly in current year annual Budget. Even after the budget, when a foreign company (Monsanto) threatened to leave country if its prices were capped by govt (favoring farmers), govt said the company was free to go. And now, fee is made free for some segments while the richer general category will face steep hike. It is continuation of “rob Ram to pay Raheem” policy. The problem is – if we are Raheem we would love it. If we are Ram we shall hate it. All this is not “fair play” for sure and most troubling thing is that any govt when it makes such policy changes, it goes on “forever” – just like quota remained forever and no govt would ever dare to put it back. So I don’t love it but the smart manner in which govt is doing it – by including poor (<1 lakh income) among general category also in the beneficiary list, it is trying to confuse us. So we can't totally hate it and we can't totally love it. And BJP is busy playing its cards smartly. Only results of next election will prove if its bets turned out to be right or wrong.
One more point – during last Bihar elections due to one RSS leader's comment there was a huge controversy in media that BJP will remove quota. It was used by shrewd Nitish ji against BJP in polls big time. So later Modi ji had to repeatedly say that no one will ever harm caste quota and it is a "right" of the beneficiary castes. But all was merely "talk" and BJP needed to reassure SC/ST voters that it is not against them and that they will never touch quota. I think with this decision, and a few others which may follow, BJP is trying to "prove it" that it strongly and faithfully stands in support of SC/ST castes and they can trust the party like before. It is pure politics and from BJP's point of view we can understand it.
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