RAHUL MAY NOT GET ENTRY INTO OU CAMPUS

The Telangana state government is making 'strategic moves' to block Congress President Rahul Gandhi from entering the Osmania University campus on August 14. While the Telangana Congress leaders are busy making arrangements to hold Rahul's meeting with students at OU Arts College grounds, the government has initiated steps to block it.

Following directions from the CMO, the Higher Education Department is learnt to have instructed the university authorities not to give permission to hold any political programme on the campus as it might lead to violent incidents. The university is expected to issue an order within a week banning all kinds of political meetings on the campus on the grounds that they would disrupt the academic atmosphere and might also lead to violent incidents.

Since universities are autonomous bodies, the government or the police cannot directly deny permission to hold meetings on the campus. Therefore, the government has opted for an 'indirect route', asking the university authorities not to give permission for meetings and also seek police security to prevent the entry of 'outsiders' into the campus on August 14.

The government asked the university to also cite disruption of arrangements for the Independence Day celebrations on the campus next day on August 15, if public meetings are held just a day before on August 14.

The government wants the university's ban order framed in such a way that it would pass legal scrutiny as it expects the Congress leaders or student organisations to approach the High Court against the ban.

“If the government or the police department directly bans the meeting on the campus, it will not stand legal scrutiny as universities are autonomous bodies. If university itself bans it, no one can question,” official sources said.

The OU campus was the hotbed of the Telangana agitation from 2009 to 2014, with OUJAC, with the support of the TJAC and the TRS, spearheading the statehood agitation successfully.

However, after formation of TS in 2014, the OU student organisations have been having a tiff with TRS over the failure of the state government to fill lakhs of government jobs promised during agitation.

The Congress is now trying to get close to students by hosting a meeting with

Rahul Gandhi and target the TRS government for its failure to provide jobs for the unemployed.