IN A significant development, acting vice-chancellor of DDU Gorakhpur University Prof AK Mittal held a meeting with the members of the proctorial board and discussed the situation emerging after Friday’s directive of the Allahabad High Court to conduct the election. He hinted that the election could be conducted by December 31 if everything was normal. On the assurance of Prof Mittal, student leader Rajesh Pandey, who was on hunger strike since the last three days, ended the strike.
Other groups of students also took out candlelight procession to press their demand for restoration of the classes and to ensure smooth functioning of the university. They said that in the ongoing tussle between the university authorities and students, classes were suffering for the last 19 days.
Student leaders Vinay Kumar Singh, Kush Kumar Singh Shrinetra, Neeraj Shahi, Dr Ratan Pal Singh and others welcomed the directive of the High Court to restore democracy in the university and said they would step up their agitation.
They have convened a meeting on December 17 to discuss the future course of action in this regard.
Student leaders Swantantra Veer Singh, Vibhrat Chand Kaushik, Vishwajeet Tiwari, Nadim Khan, Rampreet Nishad and others demanded that the candidates’ age should be counted from the date of nomination and the DDU university should take help of the code of conduct formulated by the Lucknow University for students’ union election.
Earlier, the students took out a symbolic funeral procession of vice-chancellor Prof Arun Kumar and burnt his and the university administration’s effigies at Ambedkar crossing and also staged a dharna at the administrative block.