Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit on Thursday said that he would need three to four weeks to decide on the Bill seeking to provide 7.5% horizontal reservation in undergraduate medical courses for NEET-qualified state government school students. The Governor was responding to DMK leader MK Stalin’s letter on the matter, in which the latter had urged the Governor to grant his assent.
On the same day, upon receiving the response, Stalin announced that his party will hold a massive protest outside the Raj Bhavan on Saturday to demand Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit give his immediate assent to the bill for reservation to government school students in medical college admissions.
“I would like to inform you that I am seized of the matter and getting it examined from all angles. I need at least three to four weeks time to arrive at a decision. The same has also been informed to the delegation of Ministers who had called on me recently,” the Governor wrote in his reply letter.
Reacting to Purohit's letter, Stalin, in a statement, said that a month has already passed since the Bill was passed and that another month to take a decision on it is to water down the Bill.
The Tamil Nadu Admission to Undergraduate Courses in Medicine, Dentistry, Indian Medicine and Homeopathy on preferential basis to the students of the Government Schools Bill, 2020 providing 7.5 percent reservation for government school students was passed by the Assembly on September 15.
Stalin also said the Group of Ministers who had met Banwarilal Purohit on the subject had held back from the media what the Governor had told them, while adding that Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami had not responded to his suggestion to hold a joint protest to secure the state's rights.
In this situation, Stalin said it is imperative on the part of the DMK to protest to seek that Purohit gives his immediate assent to the reservation Bill while condemning the AIADMK government for not exerting pressure on the Governor on the matter.
With IANS inputs