Problems galore in BU Syndicate election

Problems galore in BU Syndicate election

02/12/2021

Special CorrespondentCoimbatore

Election of four persons to the Bharathiar University Syndicate, it appears, is running into problems.

In October this year, the University issued a notification to elect four persons to the Syndicate – two from the teachers’ constituency and a like number from the principals’ constituency in the Senate. It had said that November 9 would be the last date for receipt of nomination and November 16 the date for withdrawal of nominations and the election will be held on December 8.

Earlier, the University had accepted applications for inclusion of names in the voters’ list for the two constituencies.

After the University published the list of candidates in the fray in the teachers’ constituency, it came to light that one of the contestants – D. Gnana Senthil Kumar, a faculty of a self-financed college in Tiruppur district, was not even a voter in the teachers’ constituency.

Clerical error

When this was raised with the University authorities, the reply was that Mr. Kumar was very much a voter in the teachers’ constituency and the failure to include his name in the voters’ list was a clerical error.

The second, according to sources, was a few persons had approached the University to include names of 22 persons who were either principals or principals in-charge in self-financed colleges but were not in the voters’ list.

After the move came to light, the Association of University Teachers objected to it saying inclusion of names after the finalisation of voters’ list, notification of election and finalisation of candidates was illegal.

The Association’s State president P. Thirunavukkarasu, in his note to Vice Chancellor P. Kaliraj, said as per election rules, inclusion of names at such a very late stage in election was arbitrary and illegal.

The final electoral rolls the University had published on November 8 was final.

Objection

Sources said one of the four contestants in the fray in the principals’ constituency objected to the inclusion of names in electoral rolls.

Vice-Chancellor Mr. Kaliraj said it was true that a move was made to update the rolls. But the University had decided against it because it had had given ample time for updating electoral rolls in both the constituencies.

As for the candidature of Mr. Kumar, Mr. Kaliraj said the application for inclusion of his name in voters’ list was submitted well before the deadline.