Ravenshaw University Vice Chancellor Prakash Chandra Sarangi today issued an emotional appeal to both -- teachers and students to keep the political parties at bay from controlling the varsity matters.
The VC's appeal assumes significance as the university authorities are going ahead with an alternative model of students' representation through decentralised direct elections on August 22 and 23 and on the other hand, the students' wings of various political parties have called for a university bandh on these two days.
The University issued notifications for the elections of class representatives on Tuesday and the elections for conveners and deputy conveners from among the class representatives on the following day.
The elected conveners and deputy conveners will then form the presidium of the Students' Council to take care of various students' activities, including athletics, dramatics and social services.
But opposing the proposed model and demanding to have the centralised elections among all students to form the Students' Union as earlier, students' outfits of various political parties are holding protest rallies and sit-in dharna inside the campus for past one week.
Going one step ahead, some students claiming allegiance to ruling BJD burnt the effigy of the vice chancellor in front of the University gate today.
But unperturbed over the mounting pressures from political parties, the vice chancellor appealed to the students to participate in the two-day elections in large numbers.
"We have come to a decisive movement in our efforts to implement an Alternative Model of Students' Representation. Let me emphasise that we are not against the students. They are getting the democratic space to dissent and to protest", said the opening lines of the VC's joint appeal to the teachers and students of the University.
"You may notice that the students who have given the 'bandh' call are primarily those who have links with outside forces, including political parties. Therefore, we are at a crucial point of this cross-road", the VC's appeal said.
"The election issue is indeed a test of Ravenshaw's autonomy", the vice chancellor signed off the appeal asking the students and teachers to join hands to implement the process of the alternative model of "decentralised direct" elections in the University in order to rescue it from external control (political parties).
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