AMUSU keeps BJP MPs away from symposium

AGRA: The Aligarh Muslim University Students' Union (AMUSU) on Saturday organized a symposium for MPs but did not invite any parliamentarian from the ruling BJP.The symposium, "Marginalised section in India Tolerance, participation and legitimacy of the state" saw participation from MPs from various political parties, including the Rashtriya Lokdal, Samajwadi Party and Jan Adhikari Party.This is not the first time when BJP MPs have not been invited by the students union, which in fact had even warned the university administration against inviting any BJP or RSS functionary to the varsity’s convocation this year. They had initially raised objection to even the participation of the President of India, Ramnath Kovind, at the convocation function but had relented on the plea that he holds a constitutional post.President of AMU students union, Mashkoor Ahmad Usmani said that no BJP or RSS person will be allowed in the campus as they always pass statements against the institution and which are aimed at dividing the society and nation.He said, recently, a senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Subramanyam Swami made a statement dubbing AMU as a "hub of terrorists". Earlier, local MLAs had also commented against AMU. Interestingly, no Congress MP’s turned up at the symposium. However, six MPs were invited including Abhijeet Mukherjee, Deependra Singh Hooda, Pratap Singh Bajwa, Tariq Anwar, Sanjay Singh and Guarav Gogoi. Usmani said that they had confirmed their schedule but due to an urgent meeting in Delhi, they had to cancel their program at the last moment.Sources said, Congress party’s MP didn’t attend the symposium due to recent controversy over senior leader, Salman Khurshid’s statement that his party’s hands are stained with the blood of muslim.Manoj K Jha, RJD leader and Rajya Sabha member, Samajwadi party (SP) MP, Dharmendra Yadav and Jan Adhikar party patron and MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav attended the symposium.