Neha Bora event triggers fresh political row at Jadavpur University

Political controversy has once again intensified at Jadavpur University. On October 5, a convention was organised on the university campus at the initiative of Left-wing student organisations. The chief speaker at the event was Neha Bora, a prominent youth leader from the national capital and national president of the All India Students’ Association (AISA). The controversy surrounding the event eventually led Vice-Chancellor Chiranjib Bhattacharya to dissolve the committee responsible for approving and monitoring such programmes.

On October 5, 2026, Left-wing student and youth organisations jointly organised a convention titled “Gen Z Movement: Unity of Generation and Resistance” at Jadavpur University. The event was initially scheduled to be held at the K.P. Basu Memorial Hall. However, due to the large turnout, it was subsequently shifted to the open space in front of Gandhi Bhavan. Discussions at the convention centred on demands to scrap the National Education Policy and the National Testing Agency (NTA), opposition to the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, the Indian Statistical Institute Bill, 2026, and protests against what the organisers described as continuing attacks on educational institutions. Besides Neha Bora, SFI leader Srijan Bhattacharya, SRFTI Students’ Council president Blossom Hazarika and representatives of various student and youth organisations addressed the gathering.

The convention was followed by an intense administrative and political dispute within the university. AISA’s Jadavpur unit claimed that it had submitted its application on September 21 in accordance with the prescribed rules and that the concerned committee had approved the programme on September 25. However, Jadavpur University’s officiating Registrar Debjit Dutta claimed that neither the relevant file nor any letter granting permission had reached his office. According to the university administration, the committee can only make recommendations under the existing rules, while final approval rests with the Registrar. The administration maintained that this protocol had not been followed in this case.

Amid allegations of procedural lapses and strong protests from the ABVP and the Akhil Bharatiya Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh (ABRSM), Vice-Chancellor Chiranjib Bhattacharya issued a directive on October 6 dissolving the Committee for Approval and Monitoring of Programmes, which had been constituted on March 24. A show-cause notice was also issued to the committee’s chairman and the Dean of Students’ Welfare. It was further stated that all such matters would henceforth be handled directly by the officiating Registrar.

Neha Bora, who has led protests in Delhi against the Election Commission and the SIR and has recently faced alleged police harassment, launched a sharp attack on the Centre and the ruling establishment from the Jadavpur platform. She said that the Left does not fear. Criticising what she described as attempts to suppress secular and democratic thought through attacks on educational institutions, she alleged that mechanisms such as the SIR had been created in Bengal to facilitate political power and dominance. She said that taking away people’s right to vote amounted to taking away the very life of democracy.

Bora further warned that those who assume that Left-wing activists merely read books and deliver eloquent speeches would be proved wrong when it came to resistance. She said they would fight back against injustice and bring down what she described as the arrogance of those in power. Linking the struggles at Jantar Mantar in Delhi with those at Jadavpur University and SRFTI, she called upon students to unite to defend the progressive traditions of student politics.

The incident has sharply escalated political tensions within the university. The ABVP and the teachers’ organisation Akhil Bharatiya Rashtriya Shaikshik Mahasangh have strongly objected to the event. They alleged that political meetings were organised on campus by bringing in outsiders in violation of university rules, and claimed that there had been a larger conspiracy behind bypassing the Registrar’s approval.

The Left-wing student organisations, however, have accused the administration of bias. They questioned why no objection had been raised when a nationalist convention was held at the university earlier in September, where BJP leader Rahul Sinha and Jadavpur’s incumbent BJP MLA Sarbari Mukhopadhyay had attended as guests. They also pointed to an incident in August when a section of ABVP supporters allegedly entered the campus forcibly, vandalised property and injured students, questioning why the Vice-Chancellor or university administration had not taken similarly stringent action at the time.

Although the programme-monitoring committee has now been dissolved on the Vice-Chancellor’s orders, no new committee has yet been constituted, nor has any formal response to the show-cause notices been made public. Officiating Registrar Debjit Dutta has stated that the university believes in freedom of expression, but that the complications arising from holding political programmes without following prescribed procedures are being examined.

With the controversy showing no signs of abating, political tensions on the Jadavpur University campus remain at a high.