UP: Mayawati demands urgent solution for SC/ST students' scholarships row

Lucknow: The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) national president Mayawati, on Sunday, June 29, demanded urgent intervention of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to resolve the alleged scholarship issue faced by Dalit and tribal students studying in Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh University-affiliated colleges across various districts.

The BSP chief, in a post on X, said, “The scholarships of thousands of SC/ST students of dozens of colleges in various districts affiliated to Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh University, Aligarh, have not been settled on time at the government level.”

“…despite repeated correspondence in this regard by the university and the district administration, the result of insensitivity and negligence at the level of the Social Welfare Department in Lucknow,” she said in a post in Hindi.

राजा महेन्द्र प्रताप सिंह विश्वविद्यालय, अलीगढ़ से सम्बद्ध कई जिलों के दर्जनों कालेजों के हजारों एससी/एसटी वर्ग के छात्र व छात्राओं की छात्रवृत्ति का सरकारी स्तर पर अब तक सही से समय पर निपटारा नहीं होने के कारण उनके भविष्य के अधर में लटकने के खतरे से लोगों में भारी बेचैनी व…

— Mayawati (@Mayawati) June 29, 2025

This puts the educational life of about 3,500 Dalit students in grave danger, the former UP CM mentioned.

She urged the UP government to find a solution as thousands of Dalit students’ lives are in jeopardy.

Echoing same sentiments, Bhim Army chief and Nagina MP Chandra Shekhar Azad expressed “deep distress and anger” over the discrimination.

He alleged that students were subjected to caste-based humiliation when they approached the university’s vice over the rejection of their scholarship applications.

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Calling the treatment “inhumane” and a violation of Articles 15 and 17 of the Constitution, Azad demanded a high-level probe into the scholarship rejections and an independent judicial inquiry into the alleged insults and threats faced by Dalit students.

“This isn’t just a struggle for scholarships,” he said. “It’s a fight for the Constitution and social justice. I will take this issue to both Parliament and the streets.”

Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh University is a state university located in Aligarh, whose foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 14, 2021. Dalit and tribal category students studying in colleges affiliated with this university receive scholarships. Some students have complained that the university administration has cancelled their scholarship forms.

(With PTI inputs)

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