Maharashtra Minister for Social Justice Rajkumar Badole and two bureaucrats on Wednesday found themselves in a fierce controversy over the grant of prestigious scholarships meant for deserving economically backward students to pursue higher education abroad, to their children.
The name of Shruti Rajkumar Badole, daughter of Badole, figured among the list of 35 students who have been granted scholarships to study in universities abroad for 2017 put up on the State Government’s website on Monday.
The two other scholarship awardees were Samir Dayanand Meshram, son of a Deputy Secretary in Department Higher & Technical Education and Antariksh Dinesh Waghmare, son of Secretary, Social Justice Department.
Shruti Badole has bagged a three-year scholarship for a PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics at the University of Manchester in United Kingdom.
Meshram has bagged a two-year scholarship to study MSc in Mechanical Engineering in University of Washington, while Waghmare will pursue a two-year course in Pennsylvania State University for MSc in Information Systems.
When media persons buttonholed him for a comment, the minister admitted that his daughter had indeed been granted a scholarship but said he did not influence the decision. “My daughter had applied for the scholarship and was selected purely on merit. But I had no role to play in the selection. I was not a member of the scrutiny committee,” Badole said.
However, with apparently cat out of the bag, the minister claimed that his family had not yet decided whether to accept the financial help from the state government for her studies abroad. Badole said that Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had been apprised about his daughter’s application for scholarship.
Meanwhile, Maharashtra State Congress Committee spokesperson Sachin Sawant charged that the minister had misused his office to corner a scholarship for his daughter. “On one hand Prime Minister Narendra Modi appeals to people give up subsidised domestic gas cylinders and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis exhorts the well-to-do farmers to refuse farm loan waiver, while on the other the state minister corners a scholarship for his daughter. This is a classic case of double speak of the ruling BJP”.
Condemning the minister’s alleged misuse of office, Sawant demanded a clarification from the chief minister.
The scholarship granted by the state government involves a one-way economy air fare, education fees, allowances and other expenses.
Every year, the State Social Justice Department grants 50 such scholarships to Scheduled Castes/Neo-Buddhist students to pursue higher education, post-graduate and doctoral study courses in foreign universities under the QS World University Ranking 300. One of the eligibility criteria to avail the scholarship is the family income of the applicant should be less than Rs.600,00 per annum.