There have been mixed reactions here to the State Government's recent decision not to hold students' union polls in colleges this year. While the BJD's students wing Biju Chhatra Janata Dal has welcomed the decision, the BJP-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has vehemently opposed it.
The Biju Chhatra Janata Dal Mayurbhanj unit held a meeting on Sunday to hail the State Government's decision. The organization's State leaders Sunil Nayak, Abdul Habib and Sachin Mohapatra and Mayurbhanj District president Abhay Singh, said that after the cancellation of students' union elections, a peaceful atmosphere and a study-conducive environment will prevail in the college campus and this may lead to improvement in the quality of education.
Thus, in the changed circumstances, students will be able to pursue their studies in a better way, the BJD student leaders stressed.
On the other hand, the ABVP Mayurbhanj unit took to streets in protest against the Government decision. Its leaders organized protest meetings at Baripada, Rairangpur, Karanjia and Udala.
At Baripada, the ABVP workers, besides holding a massive demonstration at the very gate of the North Orissa University premises at the Sri Ram Chandra Vihar, Takatpur, even went to the extent of burning the effigy of State Higher Education Minister Arun Sahu. Parishad leaders including Amarjyoti Mishra, Prabhakar Das, Debabrat See and Kamal Lochan Naik, addressing the demonstrators, lambasted the Naveen Patnaik dispensation for its college election cancellation decision.
BJD has taken such a decision as a panic reaction to ABVP's growing popularity in colleges across the State, they alleged.
Similar strikes and protest marches were held in other towns of Mayurbhanj. However, there are no reports of any direct clash between the two rival students’ organisations anywhere in the district so far.