Kerala college principal suspended after SFI's election fraud surfaces

GJ Shyju, Principal of Christian College Kattakada, has been suspended after an alleged election fraud by the Students Federation of India (SFI) surfaced. The decision was taken on Saturday during a syndicate meeting of the Kerala University. The meeting also decided to recommend a police probe into the entire election process and the local police have now registered cases against Shyju and SFI top leader, Vishak.

Two SFI members from the college – Aromal and Anakha – had won the college councillor elections that was held on December 12, 2022. On May 17, it was learnt that Anakha’s name was replaced with that of A Vishak, the Kattakada area committee secretary of the SFI. These councillors who are elected in various colleges then go on to elect the office bearers of the Kerala University Union. But when the Kattakada Christian College forwarded the names of the elected councilors to the Kerala University, Anakha’s name was replaced by Vishak’s name.

Initially, it was said that Anekha had resigned, hence the name of Vishak was included and sent to the University. And when the fraud surfaced, Shyju informed the University that there was an error. The syndicate meeting on Saturday, also decided to inform the college management to recover the cost of conducting a re-election from him.