Allahabad Univerity row: CPI asks BJP-RSS to keep off

NEW DELHI: CPI today asked the BJP-RSS combine to "keep off" Allahabad University, alleging that RSS students wing ABVP was trying to "saffronise" it after "targeting" JNU and HCU, and sought action against those trying to "create tension" at its campus.

"The ABVP has been trying to saffronise the AU after targeting JNU and HCU and other educational institutes. They are targeting a students' union leader there after she refused to allow saffronisation attempt there.

"The RSS-BJP should keep off from AU. Action should be taken against those trying to create tension there," CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy demanded.

Reddy claimed AU students' union president Richa Singh had recently not allowed "communally vocal" BJP MP Yogi Adityanath to visit the campus, which, it added, "irritated" ABVP, resulting in launch of a "vicious" character assassination campaign against the AUSU chief.

"They are using state machinery to stifle the students' dissenting voices. Now they have launched a vicious campaign of character assassination of Richa and are seeking her expulsion from the University," the party claimed.

A PhD student, Richa, who faces a varsity probe into validity of her admission as a research scholar, had launched a massive agitation to protest the BJP MP's entry into the campus last year.

The AUSU leader has claimed she is being harassed by the varsity administration since.