The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Students seek interface with politicians

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Friday, Apr 22, 2011
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Students seek interface with politicians

M.K. Ananth

Namakkal: College students – most of whom are first time voters – feel that educational institutions, district administration and political parties should formulate steps to jointly organise interface for politicians with students at least from the next Parliament or Assembly elections.

The freshers, who exercised their franchisee for the first time on April 13, felt that this measure would create better awareness among them on politics and help them decide better on whom they should vote for.

The Chairman of an educational institution near Namakkal (who requested anonymity) that has strength of more than 10,000 students said that some registered and recognised national as well as State-level political parties approached him to campaign among students.

Common platform

“I suggested a common platform where the candidates could address the students in one stage for about an hour,” he said.

While this was welcomed by the parties, “we got an instruction from the Anna University of Technology-Coimbatore that prohibits educational institutions from being used for campaigning.” He pointed out at a letter signed by the Registrar of the university that had reference to a letter from the Higher Education Department's Principal Secretary to Government.

Violation

It makes it clear that such acts would be treated as violation of the Model Code of Conduct. Nodal Officer of the MCC for Namakkal district N. Gopal, when contacted, said that this instruction was circulated to avoid misuse of places of study for groupism and other unhealthy practices that would affect the learning atmosphere.

The district has 43 groups of educational institutions of which close to 10 have a student strength of more than 10,000 – while half of them have close to 25,000 students and above. This is an ideal vote bank and organising an interface between students and politicians would greatly benefit both the parties, says R.C. Kathiravan, Namakkal unit Youth Congress president.

Mr. Kathiravan suggested that personal attacks on the opposition parties and use of abusive language could be strictly avoided while permitting such interface with students.

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