SFI, ABVP members clash in Bengal's Raiganj University over Gyanesh Kumar's resignation demand

KOLKATA: Members of left-leaning students' outfit SFI and RSS-affiliated ABVP allegedly clashed on the Raiganj University campus in Uttar Dinajpur over a poster demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over voter name deletion during Pan-India SIR, an official said.

While the SFI claimed that a few of its members were injured, the ABVP denied its involvement. The RSS-affiliated students' body, in turn, alleged its members were injured by SFI activists . University officials said six students from both sides were injured in the clash.

The clash occurred as ABVP members objected to posters demanding the removal of CEC Kumar for over deletion of names from electoral rolls under the SIR process, an official said, adding that police and university security managed to bring the situation under control.

Also read ‘Not individual failure’: IIT Bombay students protest suicide, want director to quit, action against professor

SFI's Raiganj Town committee office bearer Bidesh Barman said, "The ABVP brought in several outsiders. They beat up our members, and two of them had to be hospitalised." Denying their involvement, ABVP's North Bengal unit secretary Dwip Dutta said, The SFI activists were raising anti-national slogans on the campus and attacked ABVP supporters with batons.. They even broke the campus gate."

"They attacked right-thinking nationalist students. We did not beat up SFI members. Instead, they assaulted our activists and injured them," he alleged. In late September, the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) bore witness to an on-campus clash between a section of students and members of the Akhil Bharatiya Grahak Panchayat (ABGP), an RSS-affiliated consumer awareness group.

The campus has been on the boil as students continued their academic boycott, demanding security after a protest by members of the Bangiya Hindu Jagaran Mancha.

The month before, Jadavpur University in Kolkata witnessed clashes between ABVP and SFI supporters that stemmed from a student union general body meeting on campus.