Pune | Student organisations protest on SPPU campus over delay in inauguration of Savitribai Phule’s statue

On Jan 4, 2022

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Pune : Policenama online – There was high drama when members of various students’ organisations protested on the Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) campus on Monday against the decision of the university not to inaugurate a statue of Savitribai Phule on her birth anniversary.

It took two-and-a-half-months to complete the statue which is 12.5 feet tall and is made out of 1,500 kg bronze. The work was completed on December 27 but till date, it is covered with a plastic saffron sheet.

Earlier, Cabinet Minister Chhagan Bhujbal had announced that the inauguration of the statue will take place on January 3 in the presence of state Governor Bhagat Singh Koshiyari. However, the governor was not able to visit the city, leading to the cancellation of the event.

Groups of 50 students from various student organisations gathered near the statue on Monday morning. They had heated arguments and manhandled police officials and SPPU security guards who were preventing the students from holding a demonstration on the university campus.

The agitators shouted slogans against the governor as well as university administration for not inaugurating the statue on the auspicious day. The leader of Shiv Sena’s Yuva Sena Kiran Sali, National Congress Party student wing member Vijay Gidde and Kuldeep Ambekar, a student and president of the Students Helping Hand organisation were among the protesters.

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Speaking to the online team of Policenama, the agitated student organisations representatives said, “The Pune university was renamed Savitribai Phule Pune University after seven years and till now, there was not even a single statue of her on SPPU’s premises. The statue was built after many years but is waiting to be inaugurated. Earlier, it was declared that the statue will be inaugurated on her birth anniversary i.e. January 3 but as the governor was unable to come, the programme was cancelled. So, we decided to inaugurate the statue on our own on behalf of the students, but the police and security guards stopped us. This is an insult to our revolutionary leaders and we cannot see them covered in such a way in the name of protocol.”

The SPPU authorities issued a press release claiming that the statue is still under construction and hence, they preferred not to inaugurate it.

Speaking to the online team of Policenama, Kiran Sali said, “We were informed that the governor did not have time, so the inauguration was cancelled. We were repeatedly asking the SPPU authorities to tell us the reason for the governor and other dignitaries not turning up. If we had been told peacefully, this incident would have been avoided.”

Soon after the news of protests by student organisations spread, Chhagan Bhujbal visited the SPPU and took a review of the statue work. He told media persons, “I have taken the review of the statue work of Savitribai Phule on her birth anniversary and it will be inaugurated by the governor next week. The invitation for the inauguration was sent to him late, and he was not able to make it due to late information. This led to a confusion among students.”