National
Consensus eludes over FSU poll
A dispute among politically affiliated student unions over the age limit to contest has kept Tribhuvan University from announcing the dates of the Free Student Union election.A dispute among politically affiliated student unions over the age limit to contest has kept Tribhuvan University from announcing the dates of the Free Student Union election.
A meeting of the Nepali Congress-affiliated Nepal Students Union (NSU), CPN-UML student-wing All Nepal National Free Students Union (ANNFSU) and UCPN (Maoist)-affiliated All Nepal National Independent Student Union-Revolutionary (ANNISU-R), held in the presence of TU officials, failed
to agree on whether to
impose the age limit on
student leaders.
The TU has amended its regulation to make it mandatory for a student to be below 35 years of age to be a candidate for FSU.
The NSU is against the provision claiming that the failure of TU in conducting the poll for last seven years has barred dozens of student leaders from participating in
the election. The NSU urged the TU officials to re-amend the regulation and allow all student leaders irrespective of their age to contest.
The ANNISU-R is against NSU’s request, claiming that the amendment would delay the election.
“We cannot announce the date unless major parties come to a consensus,” said Sudha Tripathi, rector at TU. “TU is for holding the election before May 2.”