Rajya Sabha member and BJP leader Swapan Dasgupta, Visva-Bharati Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty and several others were confined to a room on the Santiniketan campus for over seven hours Wednesday by members of the SFI who protested the university’s decision to invite Dasgupta to
deliver a lecture on the new citizenship law.
Late at night, the SFI members ended their sit-in, allowing Dasgupta and others to emerge from the room. Earlier, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar spoke to the DGP, while BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya urged the administration to intervene. Taking to Twitter, Dasgupta said: “Drama ends in Vishwa Bharati without the confrontation that some protesters desperately wanted.”
A nominated Rajya Sabha member, Dasgupta was to speak on “The CAA-2019: Understanding and Interpretation” as part of the Visva Bharati Lecture Series at the university’s Lipika auditorium. The lecture, scheduled for 3.30 pm, was to be chaired by Vice-Chancellor Chakraborty.
The protests began as soon as Dasgupta reached the campus. Students raised slogans and objected after they saw local BJP leaders accompanying him to the campus. He could not enter the auditorium and was taken to a guest house and kept there with others.
In a tweet, Dasgupta said: “There are nearly 70 people locked inside a room in Vishwa Bharati, Santiniketan, for the crime of attending an official, university-convened lecture by me on CAA. This includes the VC. There is a howling mob outside itching for confrontation.”
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