On a strike since Monday, students’ union representatives said they are extending the agitation as the JNU administration has refused to make any changes in its admission and development-related policies.

“In a media interview the vice-chancellor has ridiculed the students’ union and the university general body, and claimed that students’ issues are being ‘cooked up’ due to ‘political compulsions’,” JNUSU president Sandeep Singh said on Tuesday. “But had that been the case why is it being highlighted now, at a time when the elections have been stayed and their fate unknown?”

Singh said the vice-chancellor is “taking advantage” of the hold-up of elections and the crisis in the university students’ union to “push through their (administration’s) agenda of fee hikes and commercialisation.”

The students’ union is at loggerheads with the JNU authorities over the proposal to raise the price of prospectus, “commercialisation” of Parthasarthy Rock, and installing electricity metres in hostel rooms.

The protesting students called for an intensification of the struggle with a protest march on Tuesday night from Ganga Dhaba to the Ad Block. The agitators are seeking a “reasonable dialogue” with the university administration.