Would you have removed me from UGC if I had joined Cong?: Yogendra Yadav

Noted psephologist and Aam Aadmi Party member Yogendra Yadav has taken HRD Minister’s show cause notice head on by saying that he has been targeted specifically because he has joined AAP and not the Congress. According to a report in The Hindu, Yogendra Yadav wrote a letter to Pallam Raju in which he said, “someone might wonder if your government would have acted with similar zeal if I had joined the Congress or has done so with similarly placed functionaries who have joined the ruling party.” [caption id=“attachment_1106707” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Yogendra Yadav. PTI.[/caption] According to the report, Yogendra Yadav has also highlighted that there are several ministers from the Congress who own or run educational institutions and asked why the HRD Ministry did not bother to think that constitutes a conflict of interest. There was one Congress politician who part of the UGC even after owning and managing a higher education institute, though the report refrained from naming the individual member. Yogendra Yadav had earlier made it clear that his removal from the UGC was a witch hunt in response to his criticism of the recent policies of the UGC including the hurried implementation of FYUP of Delhi University and also entry of foreign universities without adequate regulation. He has also pointed out in the response that he was a member of a lesser known registered political party called Samajwadi Jan Parishad before joining AAP. There was no rule or convention that compelled him to inform UGC of his political affiliation, he added. Yogendra Yadav has however made it very clear even in the past that he would not step down from his position in UGC and removing him would be a brazen violation of the rules of the autonomous body itself.