GO 97: students protest, paperwork stays home
Harish Rao was detained while trying to meet protesting polytechnic students. The police have not publicly disclosed the legal basis, while the order at the centre of the dispute remains unavailable.
Students continue to seek clarity on the reported order, whose text has not been made available.
Counter | Analysis
Telangana police detained BRS Legislature Party deputy leader T. Harish Rao in Hanamkonda on August 27 while he was attempting to visit students protesting GO 97 at Government Polytechnic College, Warangal, according to published reports. He was later taken to Subedari police station. Telangana BJP president N. Ramchander Rao was separately reported to have been placed under house arrest while planning a similar visit. Political access to protesting students, it appears, was the one department working efficiently that day.
The students are opposing reported plans to bring 59 government polytechnic colleges under the Young India Skills University framework. Their concerns include SBTET affiliation, ECET lateral entry, fees, reimbursement and the future status of their diplomas. Those are serious questions. The government’s own material describes Young India Skills University as a public-private partnership institution, but the text of GO 97 has not been published in the material reviewed. So the order’s exact legal effect remains unknown.
Harish Rao alleged that peaceful student protests were being suppressed and questioned whether students were “terrorists or anti-social elements”. The police have not publicly disclosed the provision or document underpinning the reported detention, nor any FIR, arrest memo or preventive order found in the research. The Congress government’s education policy may be dressed as skills reform; its paperwork is currently doing a convincing impersonation of a missing person.