Students' group protest outside Smriti Irani's home

Congress’s student outfit National Students’ Union of India on Wenesday staged a protest outside the residence of HRD Minister Smriti Irani demanding scrapping of the controversial four-year undergraduate programme of Delhi University.

The protesters, led by NSUI’s general secretary Mohit Sharma, reached Irani’s residence in Lodhi Estate around 9.30 am and raised slogans against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government during the demonstration which lasted for around an hour.

They alleged that lack of any action by the government despite the continued protests by various students and teachers organisations showed that BJP and the Vice Chancellor of DU were “hand in glove”.

“We have come here to protest against the FYUP in DelhiUniversity. NSUI will not sit silent till it is immediately rolled back,” said Amrish Ranjan Pandey, national spokesperson of NSUI.

He also alleged that the HRD minister was not taking any interest in scrapping the programme. “Unfortunately it is the students who are at the receiving end of this lacklustre attitude of the University owing to the atmosphere of uncertainty about their future with regard to the FYUP course,” he added.

In a statement, NSUI also claimed that its seven activists, who were sitting on hunger strike in Arts faculty in North campus of DelhiUniversity for the last six days, were forcibly evicted by police. “NSUI will, however, continue its fight for justice to students and will continue taking up this cause till our demand for rollback is accepted,” the statement said.

Students bodies and teachers organisations have stepped up pressure on the BJP-led government to scrap the programme ever since it came to power, reminding it of the promise made in this regard in its manifesto.

Irani is understood to have told a delegation of BJP’s student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, which met her earlier, that any decision to scrap the programme will be taken keeping in mind the interest of students.

Earlier, members of the National Democratic Teachers’ Front had made a representation to the HRD minister in which they argued that the programme was in violation of laws and UGC norms.