(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist)
Vol. XXXII
No.
34
August
31 , 2008
MAHARASHTRA
Massive
Victory For BUCTU In Varsity Senate Elections
C R
SADASIVAN
THE Bombay University and College Teachers� Union (BUCTU) has trounced
the panel sponsored by coterie of corrupt officials by winning 14 out
of 17 seats in the senate of University of Mumbai and winning over 74
per cent of the votes cast. This is the third time in three years that
the college teachers in the University of Mumbai have handed down such
a massive defeat to the coterie which even abjectly colluded this time
with a section of the principals. The BUCTU candidates who have won the
elections are: Professors Tapati Mukhopadhyay, B R Salve, Madhu
Paranjape, Jagdish Theckedath, Mukund Bapat, K Y Rajput, Rohini
Sivabalan, Anjali Kanitkar, Mohd Tahir, G M Patil, Anuradha Siddique,
James Michael, B M Gaikwad and Bhimrao Shikare.
Subversion of Democracy
It may be recalled here that in the elections to the senate held in
September 2005 for a five-year term, the BUCTU had won 20 out of 20
seats for the second time in succession � much to the chagrin of the
entrenched coterie in the University - a feat unparalleled not only in
Maharashtra but the entire country! S M Krishna, the then
chancellor of the non-agricultural universities in Maharashtra had set
aside that election pointing the finger at the illegal manner in which
the vice chancellor had removed over 300 names from the electoral roll.
It is ironical that the victims of this act of omission were the
elected teachers who had won despite this machination. An inquiry was
instituted into the manner in which this sordid act was done, and it
submitted a voluminous report detailing the callous and arbitrary
functioning of the university officers, particularly the
vice-chancellor and the registrar. The then registrar who had been
singled out for action rushed to the court, but got no relief; instead
a departmental inquiry was ordered. That departmental inquiry conducted
by a retired High Court judge has been completed and the report is
lying with the vice chancellor who has sat on it for the past six
months.
Second Election
The University then proceeded to hold the polls again in November 2006
for 17 of the 20 seats for which the election was set aside by the
chancellor. Here again the stamp of the BUCTU�s success was evident
when 6 of its 17 candidates were declared elected unopposed after the
scrutiny of nominations! That is when the sordid drama of collusion
between a section of the principals and the University coterie, and
unprecedented deception began.
Unable to digest the writing on the wall, the overzealous principals�
lobby then moved the vacation judge (single) and the counsel for the
University played along! This was done without disclosing that the
electoral process had commenced and a circular declaring the six
members elected had been issued by the University! And lo and behold!
An order was passed stopping the electoral process which had commenced
in which six teachers of the BUCTU had already been declared elected,
unopposed!
The learned vacation judge�s order has mysteriously vanished from the
official website of the Mumbai High Court. The tracks were covered by
getting the order confirmed by the regular bench in January 2007. The
offended senate members were still fighting their case in the High
Court when the University after a gap of one year announced in January
that the election would be held afresh. It is that election which was
just conducted on July 25, 2008 more than two years after the
BUCTU senators were ousted calumniously.
Death of Democracy
Rise of Coterie Functioning
During the two years that the BUCTU senate members, sentinels of
democracy in the portals of the University, were kept out through acts
of omission and commission by the coterie, the latter had a field day
squandering precious resources garnered in the name of post centennial
golden jubilee celebrations. This was the period in which the vice
chancellor and his lieutenants sank to lowest depths by trying to get
the University listed on the Mumbai Stock Exchange! Rupees Two lakhs
were sunk for this aborted venture.
One upstart, whose rise in the corridors of University�s power centre
is as mysterious as it is meteoric, heads not one but two important
centres in the Vidyanagari campus. A dean without a Ph D degree sits on
the Research Recognition Committee and has shot down proposals from
genuine students and college teachers for Ph D degree on flimsy grounds
and they have no compunctions in sanctioning the proposals of political
bigwigs without even due notice to the members.
Meanwhile students have been deprived of habitable hostel accommodation
and decent facilities. Crucial bodies like Management Council and
Grievance Redressal Committees for teachers, employees and students
have remained truncated and defunct.
Third Election
It is in this background that the University announced its third
election to the senate from the Teachers� constituency in three years.
The entire timetable was squeezed to just three weeks and the date of
election was fixed when the monsoon is at its peak � especially in the
Konkan region where colleges can be cut off from one another due to
flooding landslides, etc. But the authorities were hell bent on holding
these elections because of their machination which had seen the
appointment of a co-petitioner in the tainted petition being appointed
as registrar; and worse, inclusion of over 100 names of principals in
the electoral roll of teachers, even though they already have a
constituency of their own in the senate. The challenge to this in the
Mumbai High Court by a teacher was struck down. And not content with
all this the registrar invalidated over 100 valid votes contravening
provisions of Representation of the People Act regarding ballots cast
in elections where there is proportionate representation.
Battling against all odds the BUCTU mobilised over 3000 teachers. More
than 74 per cent of the ballots polled had scrupulously followed the
�pattern� of voting circulated by the BUCTU. This has resulted in the
thumping victory for the teachers who have returned 14 out of the 17
candidates fielded by the BUCTU.
The saga of the struggle that is being waged by the BUCTU against the
subversion of democracy in Mumbai University continues and its history
will be remembered in the days to come
People's Democracy