Akali Dal seeks elections for Panjab University’s senate

Chandigarh, Nov 26 (IANS) Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia on Tuesday expressed solidarity with Panjab University student organisations demanding elections for the varsity’s Senate and urged Chandigarh administrator Gulab Chand Kataria to intervene and scrap the false cases registered against students.

The Akali leader, who interacted with student organisations and sat on a sit-in protest in the university, called for convening a special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha to pass a resolution to demand the holding of elections, besides registering a protest against the allocation of land in Chandigarh to Haryana for building a separate legislative Assembly.

Majithia, who held a copy of the Constitution during his speech on campus, made an appeal for upholding the Constitution as well as the democratic structure of the country.

He also asserted, “I want to remind the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that you need to uphold the Constitution in the real sense of the word instead of just pledging loyalty to it. The Constitution came into being to protect the democratic rights of the people they should have the right to elect the Senate.”

Praising the student bodies for rising above party lines to protest against the manner in which the Central government was seeking to do away with democratic bodies of the varsity, Majithia also condemned the police action against students when they tried to proceed to meet Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann when he was visiting the campus recently.

While condemning the Chief Minister for unleashing the police on the students which resulted in the manhandling of girl students in the absence of women constables, he said, “It is also condemnable that students were charged with non-bailable offences.”

Majithia also appealed to all students to come together to save the institution, besides assuring them that the Akali Dal would fight alongside them and would also assist them in their legal battle.

He also appealed to the students to submit an application to the Chandigarh Senior Superintendent of Police as well as the UT Administrator to protest against the false cases registered against them.

Earlier, Students Organization of India (SOI) president Ranjit Singh Dhillon highlighted how Panjab University was being centralised. He said repeated attempts were being made to finish Punjab’s right to the varsity with an attempt also being made to affiliate colleges in Haryana with the university.

--IANS

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