After almost two decades, the members of the Congress-affiliated KSU and the CPI-affiliated AISF are all set to fight the students' union elections in University College, Thiruvananthapuram. But looks like almost none of them are now eligible to fight the polls. All the KSU candidates and two AISF candidates have had their nominations rejected on September 18, which was also the last day to submit nominations — allegedly because of spelling errors in their applications.
A total of 13 nominations by KSU, AISF, Fraternity and SFI have been rejected by the returning officer. The nomination by AISF's transgender candidate Nadira Mehrin, who was contesting for the post of PG representative was not rejected. Her nomination has been kept on hold.
KSU had cried foul over the incident and is now going to go to the Kerala High Court about the incident and file a petition. "Our nominations were not rejected according to the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines," says Amal Chandra C, the college's KSU Unit President. He had submitted a nomination to contest for the post of the Arts Club Secretary. "They were quoting simple spelling errors to reject a nomination. This is all planned by the SFI and the Teachers' Union. A few SFI members had told me much before that all our nominations will be rejected," he says.
This is a great blow to the unions are elections are being held again after nearly two decades, "This is the first time in 18 years that elections are going to be held in this college. The returning officers had even rejected nominations that missed a hyphen or a full stop," says Ranin S Santhosh, the AISF Unit Secretary. "However, the SFI candidates had planned everything much before. Their forms were flawless," he adds.
The returning officer however denied all the claims. "I did not look at anyone's political affiliation. I only rejected the faulty nominations irrespective of political background. If students are unhappy, they can file a complaint with the Grievance Redressal cell," he says.
SFI too denied all allegations. "I had previously explained the rules and regulations about filing nominations to everyone. But we never interfered in anything," says the SFI committee convenor A R Riyas. "One cannot go wrong with the designations. These are reasons based on which nominations are rejected," he says.
The elections are scheduled to be held on September 27.
