National
Students break norms as FSU election nears
Student unions close to different political parties are engaged in disruptive activities such as bombing, arson, clashes and padlocking on the premises of Tribhuvan University campuses as the Free Student Union election day inches closer.Student unions close to different political parties are engaged in disruptive activities such as bombing, arson, clashes and padlocking on the premises of Tribhuvan University campuses as the Free Student Union election day inches closer.
An unidentified group of students detonated an improvised explosive device at the Drabya Shah Multiple Campus in Gorkha on Monday morning. Student unions were registering their candidates for the FSU polls when the incident happened. Though no casualties were reported, the college administration has cancelled the election process due to security threat.
In Dharan, members of the Nepali Congress-aligned Nepal Student Union and
the All Nepal National Independent Union (Revolutionary) affiliated with the CPN (Maoist Centre) vandalised and set fire to property at Pindeshwor Vidyapeeth.
The unions were infuriated after the CPN-UML-affiliated All Nepal National Free Student Union objected to the college administration’s decision to allow the NSU and the ANNISUR to form an electoral alliance.
The ANNFSU demanded cancellation of the polls arguing that it goes against the code of conduct to allow an alliance on the day of candidate nomination. “The vandalism was a protest against the conspiracy to postpone the election,” said Pushpa Guragain, the NSU campus president.
NSU and ANNFSU cadres clashed at the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science in Sundar Bazaar, Lamjung district, on Monday morning.
Six people including two police personnel were injured in the row over nomination. The TU had rescheduled the nomination date for Monday for the FSU polls to be held on Wednesday.
However, the TU administration is in a dilemma whether to carry forward the election process with a spike in violent activities related to the FSU polls.
In the past one week, unions have set fire to the administration section of the Birgunj-based Thakur Ram Multiple Campus, Nepal Commerce Campus Minbhawan and Ratna Rajaya Laxmi Campus Bhrikutimandap.
They also burnt the chair of campus chief at Balmiki Campus and manhandled the chief of Amrit Science Campus in the Capital.
“We hadn’t expected such incidents from responsible student unions,” said Dilli Uprety, the TU registrar. He said that 24 of the 60 constituent colleges completed the nominations by Monday evening. The polls would be held wherever the unions cooperate.
UML leader Rabindra Adhikari, who started his political career as a student leader, said the ongoing activities of the unions reflect the culture their mother parties have inculcated in them. “This also portrays a dearth of political ethics among the student unions,” he told the Post.
Engineering students demand FSU dissolution
PATAN: Hundreds of students from the Pulchowk Engineering Campus under the TU Institute of Engineering have urged the President, the prime minister and the major political parties to dissolve the Free Student Union in the college to save it from politics. As many as 1,193 of the 1,700 students studying in the college signed the petition demanding a ban on student politics. They submitted the petition along with the signatures to the President’s Office, the Prime Minister’s Office, the National Planning Commission and the offices of around a dozen political parties. “We want our college to be a politics-free zone,” said Sagar Dhakal, a leader of the campaign. “These unions are only deteriorating the academic environment.” He said they were consulting with lawyers to file a writ petition in the Supreme Court demanding dissolution of unions in colleges.