Jamia Millia Islamia has sent an invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to be the chief guest at its annual convocation this year. The university’s Vice-Chancellor Talat Ahmad told The Pioneer that he recently called upon Modi and invited him to chair the convocation as the chief guest. The Vice-Chancellor (V-C) said that he was awaiting the Prime Minister’s nod to go ahead with the programme.
last year, President Pranab Mukherjee was the chief guest at the convocation of the university, which was founded in 1920 and became a central university in 1988.
“Modi is the Prime Minister of this country and has been invited by our university at its annual convocation. last year, we had invited President Pranab Mukherjee who agreed to come and now we are waiting for Modi to take out time to visit the varsity,” Ahmad said. As soon as the news of the V-C’s invitation to the PM spread, rumours of the faculty, alumni and students at Jamia Millia Islamia objecting to it began making the rounds.
However, the V-C brushed aside the rumours about the faculty raising eyebrows, and said no one should dig into statements made in the past and create unnecessary controversies. “To the best of my knowledge, no one has raised any objections in Jamia Millia. like we invited the President last time, we have invited the Prime Minister this time. I have invited him and now I hope he will have the time to come and grace the occasion,” Ahmad said.
However, the university has not received any confirmation from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) as yet. “We had extended an invitation to him earlier this month. We have not received any communication from the PMO so far,” he added.
The invitation assumes significance as Modi, who has not visited the university so far, had flayed Jamia in 2008 after the Batla House encounter in September that year. Addressing a gathering in Gujarat, he had said, “There is a university in Delhi called Jamia Millia Islamia. It has publicly announced that it will foot the legal fee of terrorists involved in the act. Go drown yourself. This Jamia Millia is being run on Government money and it is daring to spend money on lawyers to get terrorists out of jail. When will this vote bank politics endIJ”
Modi’s comments had come following a statement by the then Jamia V-C Mushirul Hasan that the university would offer legal aid to two of its students arrested for their suspected involvement in terror activities.