After long delay, MU senate elections will be held in April

For 10 seats under the graduate constituency, a fresh voters’ registration process will be held from October 30 to November 30, while verification of the applications will go on from December 1 to February 25. The final voters’ list will be out on February 26. Applications from candidates will be accepted on March 11 and the process of following verification, appeal etc., voting and counting will finally take place on April 21 and 24, respectively.

“This is a delay of an additional five months. The elections have been pending for long due to incompetence of the MU’s administration, which is least bothered about the loss of students and other stakeholders. At a time when the MU is marred by so many issues starting from exams and results to even vacancy of teachers and other administrative issues, the administration is delaying formation of regulatory body that is Senate,” said Santosh Gangurde, state chief organiser of the Maharashtra Navnirman Vidyarthi Sena (MNVS), youth wing of MNS, adding that they were ready for elections.

Pradeep Sawant, former MU Senate member from Yuva Sena, said, “This, too, is a tentative program, we will have to wait and watch as it is strategically aligned with the general elections. The MU has clearly disrespected the voters, around 92,000 which were valid registrations according to their scrutiny. Additionally, now MU has brought a new clause that even after submitting an online application, a voter will have to submit photocopy physically at MU campus. This will be inconvenient and will impact voters’ registration.”

The MU Senate elections for the graduate constituency has been pending for close to a year and was mired in controversy.

Starting from two sets of Yuva Sena and NCP students’ wing leaders, it again hit a rocky road following allegations by BJP MLA Ashish Shelar about bogus registration of voters. The MU on August 17 stayed the Senate elections following instructions by the state government. While a court case challenged the MU order, the university had constituted a three-member committee under the chairmanship of Prof RS Mali to conduct an inquiry into the allegations.

Last week, the committee submitted its report which recommended fresh registration of voters, following which a decision was taken in the Management Council to redo voters’ registration.