Lucknow: Before the urns carrying Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s ashes could arrive here for immersion, a new issue has cropped up barely 95 kilometres from here — finding former PM’s pre-1947 records.
Kanpur University has formed a team to search for Vajpayee’s educational records that dates back to 1947. The hunt for the documents began again after members of local BJP unit wanted to get the records for the upcoming museum.
Way back in 2015, Union minister Nirmala Sitharaman had approached Agra’s Bhim Rao Ambedkar University (DBRAU) to seek former PM’s records for a personal documentary project, but the varsity could not find it.
There were protests even then. However, over the time the matter subsided, only to resurfaced after Vajpayee’s demise.
The late prime minister had done his post-graduation in political science from Kanpur’s Dayanand Anglo-Vedic (DAV) College from 1945-1947. The college was then affiliated to Agra University (now known as Ambedkar University).
After Chhatrapati Shahu Ji Maharaj University (Kanpur University) was established in 1996, the affiliation of DAV was given to city varsity.
“The College does not have degrees of Atal Bihari Vajpayee as it used to be given directly to students then. We will look if some of the records are still with the college anyhow. A team has been constituted to search for Atal Ji’s records as the matter dates back to 1947,” said DAV College's principal Amit Srivastava.
Agra University’s vice chancellor Arvind Dixit said, “The records of Atal Bihari Vajpayee ji are not available with us. The DAV College from where he did his graduation got affiliated to Kanpur University in 1966, all the records of DAV college were handed over to Kanpur University. However, we will once again try to search for the records of Atal Ji.”
On the other hand Vice Chancellor of CSJMU (Kanpur) University, Professor Neelam Gupta claimed that all the academic records of the students of any college are maintained by the University to which it is affiliated.
Speaking to media she said, “When Atal Bihari Vajpayee did his graduation from DAV College, it was affiliated to Agra University then, so the records should be with them. We will still try to look for Atal ji’s records at CSJMU.”
The local Kanpur unit chief of BJP, Surendra Maithani has said that he has urged to the VC’s of both the varsities to search for the records of Atal ji.
“Both Agra and Kanpur universities must try to find the academics records of Atal Ji so that it can be dedicated to the nation. However if the records of Atal Ji still go untraceable, then I will seek the intervention of chancellor of these state universities,” he said.
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