The polling for Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University’s Senate polls for the 10 seats of Registered Graduates will be held on Sunday between 8 am and 4 pm. The polling will be conducted at 102 centres. 60,376 voters will exercise their franchise. Voters will have to cast their votes by preference and every eligible voter should take part in the voting process, appealed Dr Subhash Chaudhari, Vice Chancellor; Dr Sanjay Dudhe, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dr Raju Hiwase, Registrar. Over 400 employees of university and affiliated colleges are taking pains to have free and fair polls. Election Officer Dr Raju Hiwase is leading a team that has Waseem Ahmed, Pradip Biniwale, Rajendra Utkhede, Mehtab Khan, Ganesh Kumkumwar, Shailesh Rathod, Swapnil Modak, Nitin Kharbade in it. Graduate category has 10 seats and as per the Maharashtra Public Universities Act, 2016, all members are the elected ones. Of the 10 seats, five are of Open category while the bifurcation of remaining five is among SC, ST, OBC, VJNT and women.

 

There are 51 candidates in the fray. The Mahavikas Aghadi (MVA), comprising Vidyarthi Sangram Parishad, Secular, Young Teachers Association, Vidarbha Madhyamik Shikshak Sangh, Yuva Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray), Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), has fielded six candidates -- Adv Manmohan Bajpai, Pravin Udapure, Hemant Sonare, Pravin Bhange, Amit Kakde, Madhuri Paliwal in Open while in reserved SC - Kunal Patil, ST- Mukesh Pendam, OBC- Dinesh Dhote, NT- Khimesh Badhiye, Woman- Kiran Ajbale. Shikshak Bharati too has fielded its candidates including Sapan Nehrotra and Kishor Warbhe. The candidates of some groups who filed nominations till the last date include ABVP: Open- Ajay Chavan, Vasant Chute, Nilesh Gawande, Vishnu Changde, Manish Wanjari; SC - Prathamesh Fulekar, ST- Dinesh Sheram, OBC- Sunil Fudke, VJNT- Waman Turke, Woman- Roshni Khedkar. Senate Parivartan Panel: Open- Prashant Dekate, Shilwant Meshram, Mukesh Meshram, Prashant Ganvir, Ashish Fulzele. SC- Ankit Raut, ST- Rajendra Maraskolhe, OBC- Snehal Tajne, VJNT- Dashrath Jadhav, Woman- Sheikh Shabina Anjum. Atul Khobragade’s Yuva Graduate Forum: Open- Pallavi Aate, Vivek Gaikwad, Rahul Hanwate, Umeshkumar Katre, Nilesh Wagh, SC- Sachin Mekale, ST- Devendra Taram, OBC- Umesh Korram, VJNT- Ramesh Rathod, Woman- Ranjana Surjuse. The counting will be conducted on March 21, 2023 at Bajaj Bhavan. As per the University official, the results may be declared by 9 pm.

 

Wrong addresses leads to chaos Errors in the voters’ addresses led to chaos in allotment of polling centres to voters. Some voters residing in Nagpur will have to go to Wardha to cast their votes, while some people from Bhandara got centres in Nagpur. This chaos may affect the voting percentage as people will be reluctant to go to other cities to exercise their franchise. Some organisations raised their voices on Saturday against the goof-up in the allotment of centres. According to University administration, the mess took place because during registration of voters, some organisations got registered voters in a wrong manner. Registration of some voters was done by more than two people leading to confusion in their personal details. For example four people did registration of one voter whose address was not mentioned properly. During scrutiny, university had to put only one registration of that voter. Administration tried to find out the details of the voter but it failed to do so because of lack of availability of details. It happened in case of several voters. Since administration could not ascertain as to which details of the voters are correct, they put one registration and others made invalid.