NEW DELHI: Former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) presidents, including CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, threw their weight behind the students agitating for withdrawal of a proposal to hike hostel fees, on Monday.
Labelling the university as a “non-elitist” institution, they called for a nationwide protest against the Centre’s education policies and the “anti-poor” hostel fee hike proposal.
The countrywide protests would be held on November 27.
The former student body chiefs, who addressed the media at the Indian Women Press Corp, said that the protests shouldn’t be seen as a “Left vs BJP debate” but a fight for the students’ “democratic rights”.
The former JNUSU chiefs included eminent scientist D Raghunandan and N Balaji, who was elected president last year.
“Many may call JNU a Left bastion but two ministers in the Narendra Modi government also studied in the university. The institution has also produced several IAS and IPS officers,” Yechury, who headed the JNUSU from 1977-78, said.
“The struggle is not just for the rollback of the hostel fee hike proposal but to save public education. This government has made education a privilege, not a right,” the CPI(M) general secretary said.
He demanded an independent inquiry by a high court judge into the alleged police action against students during a rally, as well as an immediate rollback of the proposed hostel fee hike.