A political row has erupted in Jammu and Kashmir after Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha accepted a memorandum submitted by the Bharatiya Janata Party seeking to scrap the admission list at the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence, as 42 of the 50 selected students are Muslims, The Hindu reported on Sunday.

While the ruling National Conference has described the memorandum as “divisive and communal”, the Opposition Peoples Democratic Party stated that the BJP’s move was “shameful”.

On Saturday, the BJP, along with Hindutva organisations the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal, asked Sinha to amend admission rules and reserve all seats at the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University for Hindu students.

The lieutenant governor serves as the chairman of the Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, which runs the institution.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal are part of a group of Hindutva organisations led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling BJP at the Centre.

The Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University is not a minority institution. Therefore, religion cannot be a factor for admissions to the university.

Unidentified officials had told The Indian Express that admissions to the medical course were done according to the National Medical Commission rules. Of the 50 seats, 85% are reserved for Jammu and Kashmir domiciles and 15% are open nationally.

However, BJP’s Sunil Sharma, who is the leader of Opposition in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, told Sinha on Saturday that the university “is a religious institution and people have faith and beliefs attached to it”, The Hindu reported.

The BJP’s memorandum submitted to Sinha has not sought minority status for the university but objected to the admission of “the majority of students from a particular community”, according to The Times of India.

“Every devotee donates to this religious institution with a wish to see the promotion of their faith,” Sharma was quoted as saying. “However, the Board as well as the varsity have not considered the faith.”

Earlier in the week, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal held demonstrations outside the Katra institute and burnt the effigy of the chief executive officer of the Vaishno Devi Shrine Board, The Indian Express reported.

After the lieutenant governor accepted the Hindutva party’s memorandum, the National Conference accused the BJP of “communalising institutions”, reported The Hindu.

“If hospitals, schools, universities, and medical colleges start deciding intake on the basis of religion, what kind of country will we become,” said party legislator Tanvir Sadiq. “Will merit be pushed aside to satisfy majoritarian demands?”

He added that an institution funded by a shrine does not become “religion-based”, reported The Times of India. “Donations made out of devotion cannot be converted into tools of discrimination.”

Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti alleged that discrimination towards Muslims in Kashmir was being extended to education.

“The irony being that this anti-Muslim apartheid is being legitimised and carried out in India’s only Muslim majority State with its only Muslim chief minister,” she said.

Jammu and Kashmir People's Conference chief Sajad Lone alleged that the BJP was “experimenting with the concept of communalising medical sciences”.

“Medical science needs researchers not religious zealots,” Lone said on social media.