A handful of students and non-students denied the historic Ravenshaw University a slice of its own history when the university authorities on Tuesday pulled back, albeit temporarily, from holding students’ elections in a new format that would have ushered in peaceful academic ambience in college campuses across the State.
“In view of the bandh call given by different disruptive forces, it was not possible to hold elections to form a Students’ Council of the university that was scheduled for today and tomorrow and the whole process of elections has been kept in abeyance until further orders,” said Vice-Chancellor Prakash Chandra Sarangi on Tuesday.
Instead of earlier centralised direct elections to form a Students’ Union that was always associated with violence and disruption of academic atmosphere, the authorities had worked upon the alternative model, without political parties’ interference, to form a Students’ Council this year through a more scientific and decentralised direct election to pick up its office-bearers.But a group of non-students along with a handful of students under the banner of the Students’ Coordination Committee, which had given a two-day university bandh call, sat on a dharna blocking the entry gates of the institution since early morning on Tuesday.
Neither the students nor the staffs of the university were allowed to go inside or come out of the campus.
When the agitating students did not relent to the repeated requests from police and university staffs to vacate the place, the Vice-Chancellor decided not to precipitate the situation further and announced postponement of the scheduled elections for the time being. “We will take a call on students’ election at a later date,” the VC said.