Demands to cancel J-K medical college admissions ‘misguided', 'dangerous'; leaders slam BJP

Opposition party leaders have criticised BJP’s demand to cancel the MBBS admission list at the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME) after it admitted 90% Kashmiri students, calling it “communalisation” and “unconstitutional”. The Jammu-Kashmir based college has been sanctioned 50 MBBS seats this year and 42 seats have been allotted to Muslim students in the first batch, sparking a row.

Protests erupted in Jammu with the right-wing Hindu groups questioning the admission process and demanding the grant of "minority institution" status to the newly-established institute. Officials, however, have said that the admissions were based on merit in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) 2025 as the institute has not been granted minority status and, therefore, no reservation criteria could be applied.

Criticising Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s call to revoke the admission list at the SMVDIME, the National Conference (NC) leader Tanvir Sadiq said, “When you communalise institutions, you aren’t just doing politics, you are dividing society at its core. If hospitals, schools, universities, and medical colleges start deciding intake on the basis of religion, what kind of country will we become? Tomorrow, will a patient be treated according to their faith? Will merit be pushed aside to satisfy majoritarian demands? This is a recipe for disaster.”

The chief spokesperson of the ruling party in J-K remarked, “the BJP’s stance on the SMVDIME admissions where selections were purely merit-based is not just misguided, it is dangerous. A shrine-funded institution does not become a religion-based institution. Donations made in devotion cannot be converted into tools of discrimination.”

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Hitting out at BJP, he went on, “For your petty political gains, BJP, please do not turn our institutions into battlegrounds of faith. You are planting a time bomb that, once it goes off, will create a divide no one will ever be able to fix.”

“Communalising health and education is fundamentally wrong. It harms society today and destroys the nation tomorrow. This toxic politics must stop before irreparable damage is done,” the MLA from Zadibal said.

BJP's demands to cancel medical college admissions

BJP leader Jahanzaib Sirwal reminded his own party members that SMVDIME is a fully public-funded university established by an Act of the Jammu and Kashmir legislature and governed by the laws of India. It is not a private temple trust or a religious endowment. Calling BJP’s demands "irresponsible and unconstitutional", he said, “no institution receiving public money can discriminate on the basis of religion.”

He said the stance taken by these BJP leaders is a "direct assault on the Constitution", the rule of law and the very idea of India that the party claims to uphold. "It is ironic and shameful that an institution of higher learning, meant to nurture talent and promote unity, is being dragged into the dirty swamp of communal polarisation for petty political gains. Using education as a tool for division is the lowest form of politics imaginable," the BJP leader added.

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"Any attempt to communalise educational institutions will only push India towards destruction and cause irreparable damage to our social fabric. "The BJP belongs to the legacy of (former prime minister) Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his vision of 'Insaniyat, Jamhooriyat aur Kashmiriyat'. It is time we return to that path instead of walking on the path of hatred," he further said.