Upper-caste groups allege bias in UGC equity regulations, BJP offers reassurance

Resignations by BJP leaders in Uttar Pradesh and public assurances from the party’s national leadership have brought sharp political focus to a sustained campaign by upper-caste Hindu students and their parents against the University Grants Commission Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations, 2026, with protesters claiming the new rules discriminate against General Category students even as BJP figures promise that their interests will be protected.

The controversy escalated on January 26, when Bareilly City Magistrate Alank Agnihotri, a 2019-batch Provincial Civil Services officer, resigned from his post citing dissatisfaction with the UGC regulations, while nearly a dozen local BJP members in Lucknow also submitted their resignations from the party in protest against the framework governing equity in higher education.

The campaign opposing the regulations argues that the measures unfairly frame upper-caste students as potential perpetrators of harassment, and critics contend that the language and structure of the rules create a presumption of guilt rather than ensuring procedural balance within academic institutions.

Under the 2026 regulations, all higher education institutions are required to constitute Equity Committees, and these committees must include members from Other Backward Classes, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, persons with disabilities and women, a provision that replaces the UGC’s earlier 2012 anti-discrimination framework and significantly expands its representational mandate.

Dissent has also been articulated formally within the party, as Uttar Pradesh BJP Member of Legislative Council Devendra Pratap Singh wrote to the UGC stating that the regulations were making general category students feel unsafe, a concern that has echoed across campuses and parent groups supporting the campaign.

The matter has meanwhile entered the judicial arena, with a writ petition challenging the University Grants Commission Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations, 2026 filed in the Supreme Court by Mrityunjay Tiwari, a post-doctoral researcher at Banaras Hindu University in Uttar Pradesh.

Seeking to contain the fallout, BJP Member of Parliament from Jharkhand Nishikant Dubey said on social media that all misconceptions surrounding the regulations would soon be addressed, while asserting that the Narendra Modi-led government had introduced a 10 per cent reservation for Economically Weaker Sections among upper castes, and adding that no harm would come to what he described as the children of the upper castes.