New Delhi: On April 5, the BJP had announced that Manoj Soni is appointed as the new chairman of the Union Public Service Commission. However, his appointment has not been well received, with activists accusing him of links to the RSS. Manoj Soni, shares close ties with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and is also linked to a religious sect in Gujarat.
Soni had been vice-chancellor of the MS University in Baroda and in Ahmedabad’s Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University too. In May 2017, he was made a member of the UPSC.
On this, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted on Monday “Union Pracharak Sangh Commission. India’s Constitution is being demolished, one Institution at a time.” Rahul tweeted a screenshot of news report on Soni’s purported ties to the RSS and BJP.
Soni has been associated with the Swaminarayan sect in Gujarat. A scholar of political science, Soni taught international relations at Sardar Patel University (SPU), Vallabh Vidyanagar between 1991 and 2016, except for when he served as vice-chancellor of two universities, MSU, Vadodara between 2005 and 2008, and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University (BAOU) in Ahmedabad between August 2009 and July 2015.
Earlier Soni was speech writer for Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he was serving as Gujarat chief minister.
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