Senior Samajwadi minister Azam Khan’s eight-year-old dream will finally come true on Tuesday when Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav and UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav inaugurate the Maulana Mohd Ali Jauhar University in Rampur.
The university has been established as a private university and will be governed by Mohammad Ali Jauhar Trust, with Azam Khan as its chancellor.
The foundation stone of the university was laid in 2006 by Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav, then chief minister, but the project ran into rough weather — first with the then governor T.V. Rajeshwar, who turned down a proposal to make Mr Azam Khan a chancellor for lifetime, and then with Ms Mayawati.
Mr Rajeshwar had withheld his assent to the bill and forwarded it to President. Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav met the governor twice to explain the issue but he refused to relent. In the Mayawati regime, opposition to the project was expected and necessary permissions were held back.
The permission has been finally given by the Akhilesh Yadav government though an amendment for granting minority status to the university is pending with the governor.
The university is built over an area of over 200 acres and several buildings are complete while the remaining are in the last stages of completion.
The inaugural function in Rampur on Tuesday is being organised on a grand scale and over 35 ministers of the UP government will be attending the same.
“The Jauhar University will give a major thrust to education for Muslims in the higher education sector and this project has been my dream. I have suffered great humiliation for it but have never given up,” Mr Khan said on phone from Rampur.
Interestingly Mr Khan has also invited Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for the inaugural function but there is no word on the possibility of their attending the same.