Lift ‘ban’ on students’ union polls in UP: Cong

LUCKNOW: The Congress on Monday asked the Yogi Adityanath government to lift the undeclared ban on students’ union elections in universities and colleges in Uttar Pradesh.

The party also demanded immediate withdrawal of cases filed against 27 students who were demonstrating peacefully and demanding elections in Gorakhpur University during deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma’s visit to Gorakhpur on September 8.

Raising these demands, UP Congress Legislature Party leader Ajay Kumar ‘Lallu’ asked as to why the BJP was shying away from holding students’ union polls in UP’s universities and colleges, especially in Varanasi and Gorakhpur, the constituencies of the Prime Minister and the chief minister, respectively. “Since the NSUI, the Congress’ student wing, has come out with flying colours in recent students’ union polls in most of the universities and colleges in Rajasthan, Punjab and Delhi, the BJP government is scared of holding the elections in UP,” Lallu alleged.

He said student unions were the nursery of politics. Students in UP, he added, could not be deprived of their legitimate right of participating in students’ union polls.

Replying to a question, the Congress leader said the BJP government’s six-month tenure in the state had been full of failures.

“Death of children in Gorakhpur medical college and the Farrukhabad district hospital for lack of oxygen and a collapsed law and order are all that they have to show as their achievements,” he said.

The BJP government is scared of holding the elections in UP AJAY KUMAR , LEADER, CLP