Giving a fresh political turn to the controversy surrounding the reduction in fees of the Indian Institutes of Management and the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Congress has charged the government with wanting to exercise its stranglehold over educational institutions by undermining their autonomy and turning them into 'petty fiefdoms.'

Congress spokesman Manu Abishek Singhvi said the government claim of reducing fees of these institutions to make them more accessible to those who could not afford to study there, was eyewash.

He wanted to know whether, in the history of the institutions, any student had decided not to go there because he could not raise the money to study.

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"Banks today will give you a loan on the basis of just a letter of admission into an IIM or an IIT. The fact is the government just wants to use the pretext of fees to take over the administration of these institutions and then browbeat directors and others on the faculty into taking decisions the government wants," Singhvi said.

Calling the government move a serious assault on established centres of excellence, Singhvi asked if the government had even one instance to prove that a student had been unable to finish his studies at these institutions because he found he could not afford them.

Singhvi said the government wanted to increase the subsidy on these students' education. But not only were they already subsidised, but every additional rupee spent on these students meant the diversion of a rupee from primary education, a field crying for injection of government funds.

The Congress leader said citing the UR Rao committee as the justification to reduce fees was absurd as nowhere in his report had UR Rao talked about the IIMs and IITs.

He also said the Supreme Court judgment in the Pai case did not say that the fees should be reduced. He said the Congress felt that a subsidy in primary education was much more important because it affected those who could not afford education.