The list is long. Allahabad's mayor, Rita Bahuguna--who contested the Lok Sabha polls from Sultanpur on a Samajwadi Party ticket--is a reader in the Medieval and Modern History Department. Her opponent in the last mayoral elections, Ranjana Bajpai, is a reader in the Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology Department. Bajpai also serves as President of the UP Women's Congress. Dinanath Shukla, a reader in the Botany department, is the elected pramukh of Kaudihar block and an aspirant for a BJP ticket in the next Assembly election.

``Politicshas become the bane of Allahabad University,'' says executive council member Vijay Sinha, who has filed a writ in the Allahabad High Court against Joshi for drawing a salary as ``lecturer, reader and professor in the Physics department, without teaching for a single day''.

Should University professors become full-fledged politicians? After all, the Allahabad University has given the country one President (S D Sharma), two Prime Ministers (V P Singh and Chandra Shekhar), five Chief Justices and a host of Chief Ministers and Union Ministers (from Govind Vallabh Pant, Ravin Shankar Shukla and D P Mishra to Arjun Singh and M M Joshi).

``I see no harm,'' says S B Shukla, former President of the Allahabad University Teachers' Association (AUTA). ``But then, they should quit the University Chair or at least go on unpaid leave. Otherwise, teaching and research is bound to suffer.''

As AUTA President Ranjana Kakkar points out, this sometimes leads to a conflict of interest. ``His junior minister Rakesh DharTripathi is accusing Gaur of sabotaging the proposal to make Allahabad a Central University.'' Last Saturday, Gaur was mobbed by activists of his own Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad with black flags in support of the demand, and the police had to intervene with a lathicharge.

The other story is that of nepotism. Former Vice-Chancellor S K Shrivastava--he was dismissed in February on charges of graft--allegedly created a post to appoint his son-in-law and even doled out lucrative University contracts to mafia dons with political clout.

According to some teachers, the Physics department--once proud to have eminent scientists like M N Saha, K S Krishnan and G B Deodhar in its faculty--is reeling under the influence of the RSS. In fact, RSS chief Rajendra Singh, was once a leading member of the faculty and it was he who is said to have patronised Joshi and Gaur, teachers say.

Sinha refers to a grant of Rs 80 lakh sanctioned in August, to a lecturer in Physics, Ram Gopal. ``The UP Government has no moneyfor either the University or the Physics department, but Gaur sanctioned this huge amount to someone who has no worthwhile research paper to his credit, simply because he is a fellow RSS activist,'' he says.

RSS links also came in handy for D K Gupta of the Biochemistry department, who bagged a grant of Rs 47 lakh from the Department of Science and Technology (DST). His project is yet to take off, but the money has already been spent. A departmental inquiry has been initiated on Sinha's written complaint, but he has little hope: ``Some influential people are protecting him.''

And if the Physics department seems hopelessly politicised, the fate of the English department is another story in itself. As of now, undergarments of PAC constables hang outside its lecture theatres. So much for classes.