CU campus polls on hold, talks on for single-day voting
KOLKATA: Apprehensive of campus violence, Calcutta University on Tuesday ordered its affiliated colleges to put students’ union polls on hold so that the government can arrange for them to be held on a single day in every district.
DC(HQ) Javed Shamim met Calcutta University vice-chancellor Suranjan Das , registrar Basab Chaudhuri and higher education department joint secretary Manab Chakraborty on Tuesday to discuss the issue.
“Students’ union elections in colleges will be put on hold until further notice. We will convene a meeting with the principals and police to decide the next course of action. These colleges may be divided into zones and then fragmented into groups,” the VC said. CU will hold discussions with authorities of the colleges within a week.
On January 19, the state government had decided to hold student’s union elections in each district on a single day. “It can’t be done in Kolkata since many colleges run on shifts. We have suggested distributing the elections over two to three days,” said Shamim.
In those colleges where nominations have been filed, we have suggested to club some colleges together under one division in the same locality.,”said joint commissioner of police Javed Shamim.
Later, the West Bengal Higher Education Council members met state election commissioner Meera Pandey to discuss if the State Election Commission can play a role in holding the college union elections. The proposal was turned down as it was said that that the Commission is here to oversee municipal and panchayat polls. However the state electoral officers gave a few suggestions to the higher education council members which may find a place in the uniform election code of conduct.
Education minister Bratya Basu had earlier requested the higher education council to draw up a “futuristic uniform election code of conduct” for students’ union elections.
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