Kayastha Community Protests UGC Rule Changes in Gonda, Seeks Rollback

The Kayastha community in Gonda has protested against the changes made by the Central Government in the University Grants Commission (UGC) rules and submitted a memorandum to District Magistrate Priyanka Niranjan for forwarding to the Prime Minister. The protesters demanded that the UGC changes be withdrawn.

The protest also saw opposition from members of the upper-caste community. They raised slogans of “UGC wapas lo” and said that if the changes were not rolled back, the Modi government would have to face the consequences in the upcoming election.

The protesters said the changes made in the UGC had led to anger among members of the Kayastha, Brahmin and Kshatriya communities. According to them, while one community appeared to be very happy with the changes, people from the upper-caste communities were upset and had come out against the government.

As part of the protest, the Chitransh Kalyan Samiti Uttar Pradesh, Gonda, reached the district administration office with hundreds of members. The delegation included its guardians Anil Kumar, Om Prakash and Prem Shankar Srivastava.

The delegation also included president Dileep, Arvind Sinha, in-charge minister Pankaj alias Sushil, Sushil Srivastava Gopal Vila, Ajay, Vikas Manohar, Rishabh, Manoj Srivastava, Atul and Ajay Congressi, along with a dozen office-bearers of the committee.

The committee members, expressing anger over the policies of the Central Government, raised slogans demanding a UGC rollback. They submitted the memorandum to Prime Minister through District Magistrate Priyanka Niranjan.

In the memorandum, they demanded changes in the UGC rules so that feelings of hatred do not develop among students in the country and equality is maintained among them. They also demanded that priority in government jobs should be given on the basis of higher marks.

The memorandum further stated that if a false Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes case is registered against any person belonging to an upper-caste community, and an investigation later finds the case to be false, the complete government compensation should be recovered from the person who filed the SC/ST case. It also demanded that an FIR be registered against that person.

Vijit, Abhay, Vinod, Anand, Jitendra, Santosh, Awadhesh, Arvind, Komal, Sarita, Pratima, Pratibha, Rekha, Sushila, Gyanesh Kumar, Rajkumar and Vinay alias Lalla were also present.