Support swells for students denied admission to LU
LUCKNOW: Support is increasing for the 20 students who were denied admission by the University of Lucknow (LU) for waving black flags at CM Yogi Adityanath’s convoy outside the varsity’s campus in June last year.
Former LU vice-chancellor Prof Roop Rekha Verma, Congress MLC Deepak Singh, Samajwadi Party MLC Uday Vir Singh and others visited the campus to extend support to student leaders Pooja Shukla and Gaurav Tripathi whose indefinite hunger strike entered its second day on Tuesday. The university withheld their entrance test results and denied them admission.
“It is a question of democratic rights. Showing black flags to any leader is not a crime. Since independence, staging protests in a non-violent way is a part of our democratic culture and it should be allowed for students too. The attitude of Lucknow University authorities towards these protesters is not right,” said Prof Roop Rekha Verma who sat with the protesters for 45 minutes.
Poet Naresh Shukla, littérateur Virendra Yadav and left wing youth leader Deepak Kabir were others who visited the campus and extended support to Pooja and Gaurav. Yadav said staging protest was a democratic right of every citizen. Saxena said these were just protesters, whereas there were instances where even under-trials and convicts had been allowed to study.
LU spokesperson NK Pandey said that the university had its own rights to give or deny admission to a student. “We have uploaded the criminal record of students involved in past incidents. We are trying to free the campus of students with police records, so that we can provide a peaceful academic atmosphere ,” he said. The university also said that the students concerned had given an undertaking not to apply for future courses in LU after the demonstration against the CM.
To recall, on June 7 last year, student leaders belonging to the All India Students’ Association and the Samajwadi Party’s Chhatra Sabha had obstructed the CM’s cavalcade and waved black flags opposing his visit to the university.