But IIT Delhi rejects this allegation, saying awardees are selected following a two-stage screening process.
New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party MLA Somnath Bharti tweeted Saturday, alleging that he was not selected for ‘distinguished alumni award’ by IIT Delhi owing to BJP pressure, a charge the institute has categorically denied.
Bharti, who did hid MSc in mathematics from the institute (1995 batch), was the secretary of IIT Delhi Alumni Association for two terms — 2007-08 and 2011-12.
Bharti, now a lawyer by profession, was also the president of the association in 2012-13.
In the tweet, he alleged that the institute excluded his name under pressure from BJP because he is from a rival political party.
Congratulations to the Distinguished Alumni Award-2018 recipients Venkata N Padmanabhan, @sumant_sinha, Raghu Hari Dalmia, @chetan_bhagat
but sorry to see IIT Delhi succumbing under BJP's pressure to exclude my name @ramgopal_rao @sanjeevsanghi @updeshv @ndtv @htTweets @TimesNow https://t.co/v07EQKt56L
— Adv. Somnath Bharti (@attorneybharti) September 7, 2018
However, Sanjeev Sanghi, dean (alumni affairs) of IIT-Delhi, has denied the charges. “Mr. Bharati can tweet whatever he feels like. Here we have a well-established two-stage screening process and only then awards are conferred,” he told ThePrint.
Sanghi further said nobody could even dream of a political interference in the matters of IIT.
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The institute announced the awards for 2018 Friday evening. Those selected for the award include author Chetan Bhagat, Microsoft India principal researcher Venkata N. Padmanabhan, president OCL India Ltd Raghu Hari Dalmia and CEO ReNew Power Sumant Sinha.
In a tweet, Chetan Bhagat has termed Bharti’s allegations as “baseless”.
He also requested Bharti, who represents the Malviya Nagar assembly constituency in Delhi, not to malign the name of the institute by baseless allegations.
He said he didn’t believe that the BJP has any interest in the internal awards given by an institute.
However, Bharti sought to know that if the reason for his exclusion was linked to his political career, then why Jayant Sinha, also a politician, was given the award.
Sinha, a union minister and son of former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, was given the distinguished alumni award in 2015.
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Wow. Of all the things in the world, Somnath thinks that BJP would actual spend time & effort to remove his name from an Alumni list. Deflate your ego or go back to wearing your tinfoil hat buddy.