Odisha Guv urged to upturn decision to cancel Utkal polls

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, Oct 2:

Leaders of the student wings of all three  major political parties, along with their supporters, on Friday submitted separate memorandums to Odisha Governor and Chancellor of Universities Dr SC Jamir seeking his intervention to overturn the decision taken by authorities of Utkal University to cancel students’ union election this year.

Members of Biju Chhatra Janata Dal (BCJD), National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) visited the Raj Bhawan here and handed over separate memorandums addressed to the Governor  to the Governor’s secretary.

The memorandums submitted by all three organisations had one running theme: revoaction of the decison to scrap students’ union polls.

“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 reminded his Excellency that in a democratic country, electing representatives is a constitutional right and students’ election is an essential part of it. According to the recommendation sof the Lingdo Commission, if there is any law and order situation inside campus after notification for election, then the university authority is 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 said.

All student leaders urged Chancellor of the University 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 there are the main reason for recurring incidents of violence in the campus.

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