BJP 'communalising medical sciences': Sajad Lone after saffron party MLA seeks reservations for Hindus

Srinagar: People's Conference president Sajad Gani Lone hit out at the attempt to "communalise the medical sciences" after a BJP MLA demanded reservations for Hindus in MBBS admissions of a university.

Lone, a former ally of the BJP, asserted that positions in medical colleges should be secured through a merit-based national-level test.

Several Hindu organisations are up in arms after a list of admitted students for the MBBS course at the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University (SMVDU) medical college showed that 42 out of 50 students were from Kashmir.

BJP MLA R S Pathania has called for reservations for Hindus in the medical college affiliated to the university based in Reasi district. A delegation of BJP legislators also met Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, raising their objections to the admissions list of the medical college.

Lone said the BJP's stand on the matter revealed a "perilous attempt to communalise the medical sciences".

The emerging discourse represented a "profoundly troubling politicisation of one of the nation's most rigorous and merit-based disciplines", he said.

"This is too much of a stretch," the Handwara MLA said, calling it a "political trivialisation" of a distinguished discipline. He asked the BJP to return to "constitutional norms and academic integrity".

Emphasising that medical admissions operate under a uniform national framework, Lone said young men and women who secure positions in medical colleges nationwide do so "through merit alone" by taking the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET).

"The finest brains in the country sit for the exam and those who get selected work hard to become a doctor. And then these doctors serve people, treat them, perform surgeries," he said.

"The scientists who made all this possible will turn in their graves when they find out that medicine has been relegated to a group of undereducated political leaders miring a subject as noble as medicine into communalism," Lone added.

Advocating for elevated standards of leadership in public discourse, Lone quipped: "How I wish a basic level of IQ be made imperative and a prerequisite for being a part of public life." A delegation of BJP legislators late Saturday called on Lt Governor Manoj Sinha and sought the revocation of the first admission list issued by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME).

The delegation led by Leader of Opposition in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Sunil Sharma questioned the selection list, alleging that a majority of the admitted students belonged to one community.

They urged the administration to ensure that students “having faith in the deity” be considered for admission.