Dharmendra Pradhan takes on Mallikarjun Kharge over university vacancies

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Monday clashed over vacancies in central universities on X with the latter accusing the Congress of denying "rights of SCs, STs, and OBCs" for decades.

Kharge had earlier attacked the Modi government citing an RTI reply that claimed 27% teaching posts in 46 central universities were vacant with the maximum unfilled seats in the SC, ST and OBC categories besides the vacancies in the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in professor-level category.

Later in the day, Pradhan slammed the Congress for its "habit of lying" and pointed to the data from the 2014 UPA era which he claimed showed 37% of central university posts vacant, with nearly 60% seats vacant in SC, ST, and OBC post categories. The Union minister claimed the vacancies had reduced to 26.8% under the NDA government.