No elected students’ body functional in JU now, says varsity administration

Kolkata, Sep 1 (IANS) Jadavpur University (JU) clarified on Tuesday that there is currently no elected students’ union body functioning in any of the three wings of the university.

The clarification came in response to an RTI application filed by a member of the National Students’ Front.

JU is supposed to have three separate students unions, namely Faculty of Engineering and Technology Students’ Union (FETSU), Science Faculty Students’ Union (SFSU), or Arts Faculty Students’ Union (AFSU).

In the RTI reply, JU’s Senior Director of Youth Welfare and Public Information Officer, Bappa Mallick, had clarified that currently no elected students body exists wither in FETSU, SFSU or AFSU and no elected office-bearer is functioning under the aforesaid students’ unions at present.

IANS has accessed the official written response from Jadavpur University.

In the RTI reply, the JU authorities have also clarified that the last time when the students’ elections were conducted in JU was in February 2020 and hence the statutory tenures of the office bearers then had expired in February 2021.

During the previous Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government, there had been repeated demands from the JU students to conduct student body elections.

However, despite repeated assurances both from the then State Education Department and the previous Trinamool Congress government, the elections were never conducted.

After the new Bharatiya Janata Party-led government had taken charge in West Bengal, the JU students have again become vocal of completion of the students’ body elections at the earliest.

Recently, JU came in the limelight against following two rounds of clashes between the activists of CPI-M’s students wing — Students’ Federation of India (SFI) — and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in the closing quarters of the last month.

A number of student activists from both sides were injured in the clash.

Recently, on the occasion of the Raksha Bandhan programme at JU, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari made an observation that that first the Communists and then Trinamool Congress created an anti-national mindset within the JU, which is supposed to be a centre of excellence.

–IANS

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