New Delhi: BJP MP from Maharashtra, Pritam Munde, demanded on Thursday that the Centre must roll back its decision to stop granting scholarships such as the Maulana Azad Fellowship, PTI reported.
The Narendra Modi government has scrapped the Maulana Azad Fellowship for minority students pursuing higher education and the government's pre-matric scholarship for them will no longer apply to students from Class 1 to Class 8.
Raising the issue in the Lok Sabha, Munde said the decision was taken without any prior intimation, and this year also, thousands of students had given applications for it.
"I demand that the government should rethink this decision. Education is free in the right to education, but these (scholarships) work as an encouragement for these students in schools," she said.
The MP from Maharashtra's Beed added, "Looking at this issue from the point of view that students are not pushed towards child labour and stay on the path of education, the decision be revoked after a rethink."
On Wednesday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed the Lok Sabha that MANF, provided for minority students, will be distributed to those students who won it by March 31 this year. These students will receive the same until the end of their scholarship period, she said.
The national committee of the Muslim Students Federation (MSF), the student wing of the Indian Union Muslim League in Kerala, held a protest in the national capital against the Union government's decision on Thursday.
Muslim League National Organizing Secretary E. T Mohammad Basheer MP said that the government would have to back down from the decision to cancel the scholarship. NK Premachandran MP said that the approach of running away from government responsibilities is not good and strong agitation programmes will be organized.