MSU senate apologizes to gold medalists, Baroda royal family

VADODARA: Amidst all the chaos that marks the annual senate meetings of M S University every year, Friday turned out to be exceptional. For the first time in the history of the university, all the senate members unanimously passed a resolution apologizing to the gold medalists for the inconvenience they had to face during the recently held convocation.
The university administration drew flak from the gold medalists for the sheer mismanagement during the pre-convocation ceremony and convocation ceremony on March 18 where students were forced to stand outside the convocation venue. Union home minister Amit Shah was the chief guest at the ceremony.
Senate member Mayank Patel pointed out that it was a matter of shame that the university did not felicitate gold medalists properly and even members of the royal family of erstwhile Baroda state were forced to occupy third row during the programme that was hijacked by BJP leaders.
“The entire programme was sabotaged. We should apologize from the floor of the senate,” he proposed. Shouting ‘shame, shame’, almost all senate members agreed with Patel. Some even questioned the university administration for the fiasco.
Later MSU registrar K M Chudasama expressed regret over the inconvenience caused to the students. “It was not intentional,” he said but apologized on behalf of the administration.
“We will definitely look into the essentials and ensure that nothing of this sort is repeated either intentionally or unintentionally in the future,” he said. Senate member Ranjan Aiyer too urged the university officials to stick to the academic calendar rather than waiting for “political events”.
Vice-chancellor Vijay Kumar Srivastava assured the senate members that the university will now follow the handbook and organize the convocation in the month of October.
The university administration continued facing flak from several senate members, who raised questions on the absence of basic infrastructure like washrooms, drinking water facilities, restrooms for teachers and even research cubicles.
Several senate members, irrespective of their political affiliation, raised the issue of delay in the declaration of results, lack of teaching and non-teaching staff in various faculties of the university and space crunch in the campus as well as hostel premises.