Privatisation of higher edu a ploy to keep PDA out of jobs: Akhilesh Yadav

Lucknow: Charging the BJP govt of encouraging private universities to take over higher education in the state, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday said this was being done to keep the PDA out of jobs. He said education in private universities will be costly and the PDA community– comprising Pichhde (Backward classes) Dalits and Alpsankhyak (Minorities) – will not be able to afford it and will be pushed out of the race for jobs."Higher education in private universities will be a costly affair. The youth from the PDA community – which mainly comprise poor and deprived – will not be able to afford education at these universities. As a result, they will automatically be pushed out of the race for job opportunities.This in turn will also deprive them of reservation as well," Akhilesh said."As it is, the BJP has turned qualified youths into delivery boys. They don't want the youth to get an affordable education. To make things difficult for young people who are poor, the BJP is pushing for privatization. This will hit the PDA in two ways: Private universities will not give reservations in jobs; hence, PDA will be deprived of reservation. Then education at these private universities will be costly and most of the PDA youths will not be able to afford it. It is BJP's ploy to keep PDA out of reservation benefits and higher education that can fetch jobs," Akhilesh said.Akhilesh said with such bias of the BJP govt , the 2027 assembly elections will be a "Yogi versus Pratiyogi" (CM Yogi versus youths competing for government jobs) affair.He accused the BJP govt of having failed to check corruption. "Systematic and organized corruption is rampant under the BJP government, and nothing has been done to curb it. People are aware how an IAS officer had publicly sought commission. An IPS officer had forced a factory owner to pay money to run a stone crushing factory forcing him to commit suicide. These are the examples that have come out in the open and are a matter of record. Imagine what is going on behind the scenes," Akhilesh said addressing a conference of Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha at the party headquarters.The SP chief called upon the members of the Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha – party's student wing – to fan out across the state and tell the people, particularly the PDA community, howprivatisation of higher education will harm the poor. On poor state of healthcare, Akhilesh said people hailing from CM's home district of Gorakhpur are compelled to come over to the cancer institute in Lucknow for treatment for lack of doctors and infrastructure. "This explains the condition of healthcare in CM's district. One can imagine the condition in the rest of the state," he said.