CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Teachers’ Education University (TNTEU) on Thursday courted controversy by issuing a circular, asking principals of its affiliated colleges to collect details of voter ID numbers of their students.
However, the circular was swiftly withdrawn. The circular issued by the registrar (in-charge) said that “oral instructions have been received from the office of the honourable governor, Raj Bhavan, to collect details of voter ID numbers of the students” admitted in the colleges of education affiliated to the university.
It asked all the principals of its affiliated colleges to treat the matter as “most urgent” and asked them to submit the details in a spreadsheet on or before March 19 “for onward transmission to the governor’s secretariat”. The proforma included the name of the college, the name of the student, their registration number, the programme to which the student is admitted and his/her voter ID.
It may be recalled that Governor RN Ravi had a meeting with vice-chancellors and administrators of all state universities on March 11, and discussed with them about ensuring cent per cent voting of first time voters. He had directed the V-Cs to sensitise first time voters.
To encourage the V-Cs, the governor had said in the meeting that colleges and university departments with 100% voting and universities that record highest percentage of voting will be felicitated.
Officials of a few of colleges objected to the circular and, shortly later, the circular was circulated widely on WhatsApp and other social media. The varsity officials withdrew it soon after. The second circular issued by the university asked the principals to consider the previously circular as “withdrawn” and asked principals to stop collecting the information from students. The principal of one the colleges said, “We are already short staffed and overburdened with work. Collecting the voter ID of students is an additional burden.”