NSUI wants open and fair elections at Goa University, threatens to disrupt electoral process if demands not met

PANAJI: Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India ( NSUI ) on Thursday threatened to disrupt the Goa University student elections if the BJP member and university professor Ramrao Wagh is not removed as the director of Students’ Welfare and if open elections are not conducted.

The hotly contested Goa University elections are slated for August 26 with the Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM)-backed panel and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad ( ABVP ) vying for control.

Nearly 80 university faculty representatives are set to cast their vote but NSUI wants all the 28,000 university-affiliated students to be able to vote.

In a letter to the Goa governor Mridula Sinha, chief minister Pramod Sawant and vice chancellor Varun Sahni, NSUI president Ahraz Mulla has said that the elections have been politicised by political parties and with Wagh heading the directorate of students’ welfare there was no scope for impartiality.

Wagh contested the Assembly elections in 2017 on a BJP ticket from the St. Andre Constituency.

“If Goa university does not take action before August 26, we will not allow a single person to vote,” said NSUI general secretary for Goa Simran Malkarnekar.

NSUI is not contesting the student elections as it terms the election process as “indirect” and vulnerable to “goondaism, kidnapping, threatening and manhandling” of candidates.

The student’s body has also questioned the ruckus and confrontation between the students and Sahni that occurred on August 16 within the university campus. “It is a very serious issue and has shown the reality of the BJP activists who have gone to the level of threatening the vice chancellor of the university,” said Mulla.