JU students urge VC to fix a meeting with Education minister

Jadavpur University students today requested Vice-Chancellor Prof Suranjan Das to fix a meeting between them and state Higher Education Minister Partha Chatterjee before the coming Durga Puja at the end of this month.
At the meeting, the students would air their opposition to the state government's decision to form an apolitical students' council in the institution in place of students union, JU's Arts Faculty Students' Union (AFSU) chairperson Somashree Choudhury told PTI.
"We held a general body meeting at the university campus today which was attended by student union members of three faculties. The meeting resolved to urge the VC to communicate with the minister for confirming a date and venue of a meeting with Chatterjee by next week. We handed over a letter to the VC," she said.

The meeting followed students of three faculties of JU marching to Bikash Bhavan, the head office of state higher education department yesterday, to protest against the state government's decision to form students' councils.
Chatterjee was not present when the student representatives went to his office yesterday.
"We had handed over a memorandum to department officials yesterday but we need to meet Chatterjee to directly communicate to him that we won't let the council come up in JU under any circumstances," another AFSU leader Gitasree Sarkar said.

Another AFSU leader Debraj said, "The minister had confirmed yesterday's meeting days back but later on he asked us to defer the date."

JU Vice-Chancellor Prof Suranjan Das and other Executive Council members were gheraoed for around 36 hours in August by agitating students in protest against the state government's decision to form students councils.
The VC had said he would communicate to the Higher Education department the student unions' strong sentiments against the student council.