Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati criticised the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for hiking examination fee, including that of SC/ST students, and termed it as an ‘anti-poor’ act of the BJP regime. Demanding immediate rollback, Mayawati said that the CBSE decision of fee hike was totally wrong.
Later she took to tweeter and said: “The decision of the CBSE is childish and against the poor students. The action of the government is to derail the education system and prevent them from appearing in the examination.”
The CBSE has hiked the examination fee by 24 times as now the SC/ST students who used to pay Rs 50 have to submit Rs 1200. Similarly, fees of general students have also been doubled from Rs 750 to Rs 1500. While students enrolled in CBSE schools abroad will have to pay Rs 10,000 for five subjects for Class X and XII against Rs 5,000. The migration fee, which was Rs 150 earlier was also increased to Rs 350.
Mayawati’s reaction came after the Board notified the changes in fees last week and asked schools which had already begun registration and charged students as per old fee structure, to collect the difference of amount.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Mayawati also took a swipe at Congress and Samajwadi Party after Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s visit to Sonbhadra, saying that their leaders should ‘stop shedding crocodile tears’ and instead work towards restoring land to the tribals.
“According to the victims of Sonebhadra case, first the land mafia of Congress and SP grabbed their land, following which many tribals were killed,” she said in a series of tweets in Hindi.
“Instead of shedding crocodile tears, the SP and Congress leaders should now come forward to restore the land to the tribals so that this could be corrected,” Mayawati said. On Tuesday, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra visited Umbha village to meet the families of 10 Gond tribals who were gunned down over a land dispute on July 17. Mayawati said that the BJP government should also take strict steps and ensure that tribals get back their land.
