Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University Vice-Chancellor S.P. Kane has “indefinitely postponed” a programme involving a speech by Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury allegedly due to pressure from right wing groups.
Mr. Yechury was slated to deliver a speech on March 18 on “Democracy and its values,” organised by the Department of Ambedkar Thoughts of the university.
The programme was “postponed” by the V-C two days before its scheduled date, attracting criticism from the organisers and writers and thinkers based in Nagpur who claimed that the V-C was forced to do so due to pressure from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
“We met the V-C and he told us that the programme has to be cancelled because of some unavoidable reasons. When I asked him about the reasons, he said some organisations called him and threatened to protest if Mr. Yechury speaks in the university. He did not name the organisation but it is clear that it was the ABVP,” Pradip Aglawe, head of Nagpur University’s Ambedkar Thoughts department, tolad The Hindu .
No response
When asked, the V-C said, “The programme has not been cancelled. It has been postponed for some administrative purposes. I would not like to speak more on this issue.” Senior Congress leader Nitin Raut met the V-C along with a delegation of writers and thinkers on Thursday and asked him “not to act under pressure.”
Mr. Raut said: “The V-C was under tremendous pressure when we met him. He was not in a position to explain us. He said there would be law and order issues if Mr. Yechury is invited. It was clearly the pressure from the ABVP. The V-C said he got calls asking him to not to go ahead with the programme. Mr. Yechury is not a terrorist or a traitor. He has been working as a parliamentarian for over 25 years now. He is known as an intellectual and to oppose his speech is absolutely unfair.”
The ABVP, however, denied that it had anything to do with the “postponement” of the Communist leader’s programme.
“We knew that he was going to come to Nagpur but we did not plan any protest against him which could have resulted in the cancellation of his programme. We can easily take the credit for this but the reality is that we have nothing to do with it. Had we been involved we would have openly done it and sent press notes to the media,” ABVP’s Nagpur area chief Gaurav Harde told The Hindu .
Mr. Yechury did not respond to calls when contacted for his reaction.
