Bihar protests over not being invited to AMU centre function

Bihar government today registered a protest with the Centre over not being invited to the foundation-laying ceremony of the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) centre by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on January 30 at Kisanganj.
Bihar Education minister P K Shahi today wrote a letter to Union Human Resources Development minister M M Pallam Raju registering state government's protest over keeping it out of the function.
While Vice-Chancellor of AMU has requested the presence of the Governor of Bihar for the occasion, no such invitation has been sent to the state government, Shahi said in his letter.
"The foundation-laying is being done keeping the state government in complete dark and isolation. What is more intriguing is rather than HRD requesting, the Vice Chancellor of the university writing to the Governor of the state to be present at the occasion," he said.

"You would not disagree that the foundation-laying ceremony of a government institution cannot be a political programme nor it can be aimed at as an election plank," he said.
"AMU is a Central government institution and any activity including foundation-laying ceremony has to be a government function," Shahi said.

The Bihar minister reminded Raju that the state government has made available about 224 acres of land free of cost for setting up of the AMU centre at Kisanganj.
He said that for two years no step was taken by the Centre for setting up the campus on the land allocated for the purpose.

"All of a sudden, when general election to the Parliament is to be held in next couple of months, foundation-laying by the president of the Congress party has been scheduled. What is more surprising is that there is no intimation to the state government in this regard," he said.