Students’ Union elections have been called off in as many as eight colleges in the State while half of them were closed sine die due to poll-related violence in the campuses on Wednesday and Thursday.
The authorities of the BJB (Autonomous) College in Bhubaneswar, Dhamnagar College in Bhadrak district, Ali College in Kendrapada and Pipili College in Puri have cancelled the polls and also closed their institutions indefinitely asking students to leave the hostels immediately.
The colleges which have only cancelled the polls are Chandabali College in Bhadrak district, Angul Government (Autonomous) College, Gopalpur College and Oupada College in Baleswar district.The BJB (Autonomous) College took the decision after three students were injured in a clash while a mob ransacked the Principal’s office and hurled crude bombs in the campus.
In Ali College too, tension prevailed as a group of students went berserk and tried to gherao the Principal on Thursday forcing the college authorities to cancel the election process and close the college indefinitely.“In view of the violence in the campus, we decided to cancel the election process and close the college sine die for to avoid any further untoward incidents,” said Ali College Principal Ramachandra Das.
Similarly, the Angul Government (Autonomous) College has taken the decision to do away with the polls after violence took place in one of the boys’ hostels and a clash between two groups of students in the college premises over voting rights to MBA students occurred in the college campus.Meanwhile, electioneering gained momentum across most of the other campuses in the State as filing of nominations began on Friday.