Clearing the air over the recent violence that marred the union polls, SFI state president Sudip Sengupta said: “The incidents have been rather unfortunate and we will not tolerate such behaviour from SFI members. We are investigating the matter and a report is awaited.”
He added that the SFI unit committee of the Presidency College has been strictly warned against such incidents. “Being students, we do not want to take extreme measures as that would ruin their careers.”
While pointing out that the media was only highlighting the colleges where SFI has lost, Chatterjee said that of the 440 colleges where elections were held, SFI runs the union in 356 colleges. “We have been defeated in 5 colleges and we have set up unions in 7 colleges, for the first time ever. We never form any coalitions and our performance in Presidency has also been remarkable this time.”
“In the last academic year, 16,69,307 was the total number of SFI members in the state. There has been a growth of 3.88 per cent since last year and we can proudly say that no other student organisation has such a huge membership,” said state secretary Kaustav Chatterjee.
On the approaching Panchayat elections in the state, Sengupta said CPM leaflets will be distributed among all voters.
The speakers added that the student body is protesting against the recent price hike in essential commodities.
They also demand an organised admission procedure to private engineering colleges so as to allow underprivileged students to pursue these expensive courses. “Students with a monthly family income of less than Rs 8,000, are trying for a full waiver of fees and those with a monthly family income of Rs 8,000 - Rs 10,000, are demanding a 50 per cent waiver.”