Uttar Pradesh Campus blight (contd.) In its final phase at the time of writing this dispatch, the election campaigns of aspirants to positions of pelf and power within the Lucknow University Students Union (LUSU) —polling is tentatively scheduled for end September — are hotting up. But some of the more cocky candidates are likely to get their comeuppance. After years of being threatened by student leaders, the establishment is striking back. For example, N.K. Pandey, a reader in the physics department and provost of one of the university hostels, has lodged a police complaint against student leader Ram Singh Rana, a front-runner in the race for position of general secretary of LUSU. Rana had allegedly threatened to gun down Pandey if the latter failed to provide rooms for his supporters in one of the university hostels. Rana, who has four criminal cases pending against him and has the backing of the state’s ruling Samajwadi Party, insists he has been framed. “All this talk is just part of a conspiracy to tarnish my name before the elections. Someone must have used my mobile to call him,” he says. Although the trading of such grave charges and counter charges between students and faculty are likely to shock and alarm their counterparts elsewhere in country, in the Hindi heartland state of Uttar Pradesh (pop. 166 million) where the education system has been dumbed down to unimaginable depths by rough-and-ready cow belt politicians, they hardly raise any eyebrows. Nine of the front-runners for high offices in LUSU have criminal charges pending against them for a range of offences and are also accused by police of violating the Lucknow high court’s code of conduct for elections. In a letter to the university management the police has recommended cancelling the candidature of all contestants. Though somewhat belatedly, Lucknow University’s faculty — and citizens — seem to have lost patience with the shenanigans of students and their leaders who seem to have little time for their heavily subsidised study programmes financed by taxpayers. The Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) recently complained to the police about student leaders who have defiled hoardings and statues across the city with poll graffiti. On September 15, LMC sent a letter to Lucknow’s SSP enclosing a list of 30 names against whom FIRs should be lodged. As per directives issued by the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court in 1998, campaigning for student union elections is restricted to the distribution of pamphlets and holding small meetings without disturbing the academics or décor of the campus or city. The high court order specifically prohibits pasting material on any buildings or hoardings. Yet as elections approach wannabe student politicians have taken possession of hoardings around the city to advertise their virtues. In response to a writ petition filed by a local outdoor advertisement agency, in the last week of August the high court had ordered removal of all poll graffiti within three weeks. The student leaders responded by painting the hoardings black prompting LMC to…
