BCJD urges Odisha CM to revoke scrapping of UU polls

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, Oct 4:

Members of the student wing of Biju Chhatra Janata Dal (BCJD) today submitted a memorandum to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik seeking his intervention to revoke the decision taken by Utkal University (UU) authorities to scrap students’ union election this year.

BCJD members visited Naveen Niwas, chief minister’s residence, here this morning and met the Chief Minister to apprise him of the issue and discussed on how to conduct the election in the varsity.

“Utkal University is a premier university in Odisha. There are about 5000 students studying in this university. Election is important in a university to run its affairs. Cancellation of election is completely unconstitutional and undemocratic and gross injustice to the students’ community,” said Amit Kumar Jena, presidential candidate of the BCJD.

“We have presented our views before the Chief Minister that in a democratic country, electing representatives is a constitutional right and students’ election is an essential part of it. According to the recommendation of the Lingdoh Commission, if there is any law and order situation inside the campus after notification for election, then the university authorities are fully empowered to cancel the election. But the students’ union election was cancelled for 2015-16 despite the fact that there has been no incident in the last two months that threatened law and order inside the campus. There is simply no justification for the decision,” Jena expressed.

The BCJD leaders urged the CM to reconsider the cancellation of the election in the University and demanded that non-students be driven out of the hostels inside university campus since they are the main reasons for recurring incidents of violence in the campus.

Quoting the reply of the CM to their demands, Jena said, “Naveen sir directed his personal secretary to send the memorandum to his office where a notice will be served to the University authorities asking them to file a status report on what ground they cancelled the election. After verifying the report, he will consider our case.”

On October 1, the PG council of Utkal University had taken a unanimous decision to cancel this year’s election in the university.