DW BUREAU / CHANDIGARH

Senior Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia today expressed solidarity with Panjab University student organizations demanding elections be held to the varsity's Senate and urged UT administrator Gulab Chand Kataria to intervene and scrap the false cases registered against students.

The senior SAD leader, who interacted with all the student organizations and sat on dharna in the University on the occasion, also called for convening a special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha to pass a resolution to demand holding of elections besides registering a strong protest against allocation of land in the UT to Haryana for building a separate Vidhan Sabha.

Mr Bikram Majithia, who held a copy of the constitution during his speech in the campus, made a fervent appeal for upholding the constitution as well as the democratic structure of the country. He also asserted "I want to remind the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that you need to uphold the constitution in the real sense of the word instead of just pledging loyalty to it. The constitution came into being to protect the democratic rights of the people they should have the right to elect the Senate".

Praising the student bodies for rising above party lines to protest against the manner in which the central government was seeking to do away with democratic bodies of the varsity, Mr Majithia also condemned the police action against students when they tried to proceed to meet chief minister Bhagwant Mann when he was visiting the campus recently. While condemning the chief minister for unleashing the police on the students which resulted in the manhandling of girl students in the absence of women constables, Mr Majithia said "it is also condemnable that students were charged with non-bailable offences".

Mr Majithia also appealed to all students to come together to save the institution besides assuring them that the SAD would fight alongside them and would also assist them in their legal battle. He also appealed to the students to submit an application to the Chandigarh SSP as well as the UT Administrator to protest against the false cases registered against them.

Earlier Students Organization of India (SOI) president Ranjit Singh Dhillon highlighted how the Panjab University was being centralized. He said repeated attempts were being made to finish Punjab's right to the varsity with an attempt also being made to affiliate Colleges in Haryana with the University.

Leaders of various student organizations also spoke on the occasion. The PSU Lalkar representative highlighted how girl students had been lathi charged and even manhandled when they tried to approach the chief minister to apprise them of their protest.

(editor@dailyworld.in)