CHENNAI: The functionaries of various political parties, including the DMK, VCK, IUML, Makkal Needhi Maiam, Puratchi Bharatham and the Justice Party, extended their support to the sit-in protest by youngsters at Balan Illam, the Communist Party of India (CPI) state office, as the anti-NEET protest condemning the police excess against students in Delhi entered its fourth day on Thursday.
Chants of ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ and ‘Jai Bhim’ reverberated across the campus as over a hundred protesters gathered at the site by 4 pm, in the round-the-clock protest jointly held by the Cockroach Janata Party’s Tamil Nadu unit, CPI and All India Students’ Federation (AISF).
The protest was focused, with the organisers making it clear that nobody – party, organisation or individual – and anything other than the core subject should be in the spotlight.
At one corner, three 20-year-olds, Sharwin Kumar, Andrew Mahilan and Abiya Lakshmi, were busy colouring a poster showing an orange lotus infested with cockroaches, accompanied by the words, “Man, I love fair education”. The artwork symbolically showed the CJP’s protest against the BJP government at the Centre.
Across the campus, creativity of the mostly young protesters was on display. Elsewhere, 17-year-old R Kavinshree was preparing a notice that read: “You can silence a voice, not a generation.”
Nineteen-year-old Adithyan SS said he had taken leave from college to join the protest and express solidarity with the students in Delhi.
The demonstration has also drawn support from members of the public, with organisers from CJP’s Tamil Nadu unit saying food and snacks had been arriving continuously from volunteers and strangers over the past two days.
“For the past two days, we have been seeing food, biscuits, buttermilk, cupcakes and savouries continuously coming in,” said Aneesh Vinayak, one of the organisers of CJP-Tamil Nadu.
A CPI volunteer said people had been sending whatever they could. “Some are sending just a burger, while others are sending water bottles and tea cups. The CPI is also arranging food,” the volunteer said, adding students from a coaching centre functioning at the premises also gave tissue papers and sanitary napkins.
Some members of the public have also been stopping by the protest site to hand over food items directly to those participating in the demonstration.