THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: SFI leaders staged a protest at the Kerala University’s Senate House campus on Wednesday against the display of the portraits of RSS leaders alongside that of Bharat Mata at the Raj Bhavan, amid a Senate meeting at the varsity presided over by Governor Rajendra Arlekar.
After their attempts to hang banners against the governor at the university gate were prevented by the police, the SFI activists held pictures of BR Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi, and continued their protest as the Governor passed by. Addressing the Senate meeting, the Governor called for freeing educational institutions from the clutches of politics. Arlekar also decried attempts of the state government to assert its supremacy in higher educational institutions.
Later, the governor chaired a meeting of vice chancellors at the Raj Bhavan in which the VCs explained the steps they have taken to achieve academic excellence in their respective varsities. The Governor also inquired about the vacant faculty positions and seats in universities and colleges and directed the varsities to strictly adhere to the academic calendar.
The SFI emerged victorious in the election of student representative post to the KU Syndicate on Wednesday. SFI candidate Vaibhav Chacko, a student of Kerala Law Academy Law College, bagged 56 of the total 69 votes polled.