TISS
City Congress president Sanjay Nirupam today sought Union HRD Minister Prakash Javdekar's intervention to resolve ongoing protests by the students at four campuses of the Tata Institute Of Social Sciences (TISS).
The students have been protesting at the TISS campuses in Mumbai, Tuljapur (in Maharashtra), Hyderabad, and Guwahati since February 21 against the Central government's move to stop the Post-Matric Scholarship Scheme catering to reserved category students.
In a letter to Javdekar, Nirupam said the students belonging to SC/ST and OBC communities are suffering because of the withdrawal of the scheme.
"The fee-exemption was introduced after the government had recognised the hardships faced by students belonging to the SC/ ST and OBC communities who till then only had meagre scholarships to bank on," he said in the letter.
He said the government cannot try to "pass off this fee exemption as the act of largesse or favour".
The Congress leader claimed a sharp decline in the number of fellowships offered to the students belonging to the SC/ ST and OBC communities under the Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship (RGNF) Scheme.
"This government clearly is anti-people. The Prime Minister has refused to respond to the demands of these students who have been protesting for the past 13 days for what is rightfully theirs. This fee exemption is something the Constitution has granted to them.
"Why are the downtrodden communities being looked at as mere vote banks? It only gets worse from here," he stated.
Nirupam said a significant portion of the country's population is protesting for their basic rights under the incumbent government.
