Admissions to shrine board medical college made purely on merit: DyCM

Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Surender Choudhary on Friday said that admissions to the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College were made purely on merit through NEET and should not be viewed from a religious perspective.

“My point is that children’s education should not be judged on the scale of religion. Look at their merit. The students who have taken admission are meritorious candidates. They qualified through an examination and were selected on the basis of merit through NEET,” Choudhary told reporters here.

He was replying to questions on the sidelines of a function on the 120th birth anniversary of Sher-e-Kashmir Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah here.

Reiterating that the issue was being “unnecessarily politicised”, the deputy chief minister said, “It is not about who is saying what. The students selected at the Mata Vaishno Devi Medical College were admitted on the basis of merit through NEET.” Commenting on the ongoing protests by the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Sangharsh Samiti, he said the outfit does not represent the views of all sections of Jammu. “The Sangharsh Samiti does not reflect the thinking of the people of Jammu. All their affiliations are aligned with the BJP. The truth is that the BJP has not come forward openly and has instead put the Sangharsh Samiti in front to lead this movement,” he alleged.

He urged people to question the political backing of the agitation. “You should ask the BJP and the leaders of the Sangharsh Samiti about whom they are really aligned with,” he said.

Chaudhary also targeted the BJP over its criticism of the legal framework governing admissions. “If the BJP talks about the Act (of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Medical University), it remained in power in Jammu and Kashmir for 11 years — first as part of the BJP–PDP alliance government and later during the LG administration, which the BJP itself claims association with. Why did they not remember this Act during those 11 years? Now, when the Omar Abdullah government is in place, they are raising these allegations,” he said.

He said sufficient time was available to amend the Act if the BJP had intended to do so. “There was no shortage of time during those 11 years to change the Act if they really wanted to. Our government has no role in this matter. The lieutenant governor is the chancellor of the universities and the universities function under him. So against whom is the BJP agitating now — the LG?” he asked.