A six-member delegation of MNVSwas participating in a meeting with the vice-chancellor over a recent circular allowing the students from outside the state to secure seats for first year Bachelor of Arts and foreign students to choose either social sciences or one of the languages (Marathi, Hindi, Urdu Gujarati or French). Earlier, students did not have the social sciences option and had to opt for one of the languages mentioned above as their subject.

“How can they give a third option to those students? Either they should study the state language or the national language, why a third option?” asked Chetan Pednekar, vice president, MNVS . The delegation led by MNVS chief Aditya Shirodkar was in the meeting with vice-chancellor over the circular. A letter of opposition was also submitted by the MNVS. A university official said, “The decision to introduce social science as an option was taken by the Faculty of Arts board of studies to benefit those students who do not study languages at the junior college level.”

MNVS workers also urged the varsity to publish all the circulars in Marathi along with English. They also demanded that LLM students be allowed to answer in Marathi.

“Security persons stopped some of the activists who wanted to enter the premises. A delegation led by our student union leader was participating in a meeting with the vice-chancellor. In the fracas with securitymen, some properties of the university were damaged,” said Pednekar.

Following this, six members of the MNVS and Samtawadi Chhatrabharati were arrested by Azad Maidan police. According to Senior Police Inspector Prakash Shishupal of the Azad Maidan police station, a group of 12-15 MNS activists had gone to meet the Vice-Chancellor Dr Vijay Khole at 11 am on Tuesday. While they were in the meeting with Khole, rest of the activists started vandalising the room adjacent to Khole’s room.