Congress to raise issue in Parliament, says Kharge

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge today spoke to the students of the Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (HAU) over the phone and expressed solidarity with their cause.

During the conversation, students requested the Congress president to raise the issue in both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. On this, Kharge asked the students to provide all the related facts, including the reasons behind their agitation and subsequent developments and impact on the students. He assured that the party would raise the issue of the students strongly in the next parliamentary session that would begin in a month.

The students alleged that the university administration has been adopting repressive tactics to crush the agitation. They feared that some students could be at the receiving end of the tactics of the university administration which could result in serious consequences to their careers ahead.

The Congress president assured that they would not let such things happen and reiterated that the Congress stands firmly with them and would do everything necessary to support them in this matter.

Kharge assured the students that he would ask senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Randeep Surjewala to meet with them again and explore possible solutions. The students also raised the demand of removal of the Vice-Chancellor along with their other demands.

Amid the ongoing agitation, the university administration came forward for the first time before mediapersons today and defended the action against the students stating that they had gheraoed the VC residence and so, the security personnel had to intervene.

VC Dr BR Kamboj stayed away even though it was told that he would be addressing the media. Three other officials — Director of Research, Dr Rajbir Garg; Dean of Postgraduate Studies, Dr KD Sharma; and Dean of Agriculture College, Dr SK Pahuja — interacted with the media.

Briefing the media, Garg said that there was a modification in the stipend for MSc and PhD students due to financial limitations as it was not feasible to continue offering the merit stipend to all students. He said that in 2016-17, the merit stipend budget was around Rs 75 lakh, but now, it has increased to Rs 9 crore without a budgetary provision.

He said that for the system of awarding stipend to students with OGPA above 7.5, a merit stipend was introduced in 2017. Earlier, only the departmental topper used to get it. He also clarified that there was no change in land donating village (LDV) policy. He claimed that all the issues have been resolved and the students were agitating without any issues now.

Haryana Tribune