Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad gherao Calcutta University vice-chancellor

Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad ( TMCP), the students wing of the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, gheraoed the Calcutta Unievrsity (CU) vice-chancellor Suranjan Das and registrar Basab Chowdhury on Monday for several hours in protest against the university's decision to rent out the centenary hall to the CPIM for holding a political function last week.

The CPIM's mouthpiece "Ganashakti" held a function at the centenary hall of the university last week like every year. But the TMCP on Monday gheraoed the vice-chancellor and the registrar and charged them why they had rented out the hall to the CPIM's party mouthpiece for holding the political programme. Former chief minister and CPIM politburo member Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and state party secretary Biman Bose had addressed the gathering at the university centenary hall last week. In the past also, the CPIM had hired the hall to hold the function of its mouthpiece "Ganashakti". During the Left Front regime, many political parties used to hire the hall to hold their meetings and gatherings. But this time, the TMCP has challenged the university's act of renting out the hall to the opposition CPIM. A senior university official said on Monday that "this is our general practice to rent out the hall to different organisations and political parties. This is our practice for long and now the TMCP has objected to this. It is the university senate and syndicate, two key decision-making bodies of our university which have authorised this and nothing is wrong in it."

TMCP leader Shanku Panda told ET on Monday that they have given a 48-hour ultimatum to the CU authorities to explain the policies on the basis of which the centenary hall was being rented out. "Why the CPIM will hold its political programme inside the university campus and put up red flags in every corner of the College Street campus which is the university's main campus ?," asked Panda. He claimed that elected students union was not getting the hall to hold academic functions and the political parties are using this hall where convocations are held. CPIM's frontal organisations like Mahila Samity and Krishak Sabha have also booked the hall to hold their functions, but we are not allowed to use it for academic purposes," Panda added.