Governor Arif Mohammed Khan’s recent nomination of 18 persons, a majority of whom are opposed to the ruling CPI(M), to the Senate of the University of Calicut could lead to a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member, or someone close to that party, getting elected to the Syndicate for the first time. Petitions have already been filed in the Kerala High Court against these nominations too.
Members of the Syndicate, the chief executive body of the university, are elected from among the over 100 members of the Senate. Though the university had completed the election process to the Senate by June 30, Syndicate polls were delayed, mainly due to the Governor not clearing his nominees.
The University of Calicut never has had a BJP member nominated to the Senate in its 55 years of history. None from that party has so far been elected to the Syndicate either, though people such as incumbent Goa Governor P.S. Sreedharan Pillai have been earlier elected to the Senate.
According to sources, among the 18 persons nominated by Mr. Khan, six are clearly affiliated with the BJP while five others are party sympathisers. Five have their loyalties with the United Democratic Front and two are aligned with the Left. Since at least 11 votes are required to elect one member to the Syndicate, the BJP is likely to have its first member in the Syndicate soon.
Meanwhile, a journalist and an an industrialist, whose names were part of the list of 18 persons submitted by Vice-Chancellor M.K. Jayaraj to the Governor, are among those who have approached the High Court against the nominations. Normally, Governors go by the list prepared by the Vice-Chancellor and clear the list. Mr. Khan, however, was charting his own course by picking people of his choice and ignoring the VC’s list.
The university had earlier alleged that though the VC had submitted his list of 18 persons to Mr. Khan’s office, he had been sitting over it. The authorities said this in response to a query from the High Court, where two Senate members from the Muslim Students Federation had filed a petition against the delay in holding the Syndicate elections. When the court sought a reply from the Governor’s office on November 20, his counsel informed that the list had been sent to the VC. Within hours, it reached the university. It had names of people who are close to the BJP, Indian Union Muslim League, and the Congress, as a clutch of organisations had submitted separate representations to the Governor, staking claim to be nominated to the Senate.
Functionaries of the pro-Left Calicut University Employees Union have alleged that the Governor’s nominations should be seen as an attempt to insert Sangh Parivar loyalists into the university in a surreptitious manner. V.S. Nikhil, general secretary, alleged that the journalist nominated by the Governor was not working in any media organisation. The nominee in the industrialist category is a retired staff of the university, who has no expertise in the field, he added.
