Jadavpur University denies nod to JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh to address students on campus

Ghosh is scheduled to attend a series of events in Kolkata on February 13 and 14, including a march on the streets and two events on the campuses of JU and Presidency University (PU), for the first time since being elected as the president of JNUSU.

Jadavpur University (JU) authorities will not allow Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president, Aishe Ghosh, to address its students on campus on February 14, five days before the students’ union elections in the three faculties of arts, science and engineering are to be held, officials said on Sunday.

JNU Students' Union president Aishe Ghosh belongs to the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s student wing the Students’ Federation of India (SFI).(ANI PHOTO.)

“The event can take place outside the campus but permission will not be given for the programme on the campus,” Rajat Ray, dean of students, said.

Ghosh is scheduled to attend a series of events in Kolkata on February 13 and 14, including a march on the streets and two events on the campuses of JU and Presidency University (PU), for the first time since being elected as the president of JNUSU.

Ghosh belongs to the Communist Party of India (Marxist)’s student wing the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), which at present helms the PU students’ union and the arts faculty students’ union at JU.

“We still hope that permission will not be denied. We never invite anyone who is not a student. Ghose is a current student at JNU. In the previous years, too, our leaders from other states, who were students at that time, had come before the elections,” said Debraj Debnath, a leader of SFI at JU.

A member of the JU faculty said that the authority’s decision is an attempt to preempt any possible untoward incident, especially keeping in mind the trouble that the campus witnessed last September over union minister Babul Supriyo’s visit to the campus to attend an event organised by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students’ wing of the BJP.

ABVP is contesting the JU elections for the first time. In this traditional bastion of Left wing student politics, ABVP’s presence has become visible over the past one year.