Rohit Pawar demands removal of Principal, college says all students are ‘treated equally’

The principal’s reaction came following criticism from various quarters including by VBA Prakash Ambedkar and Rohit Pawar.

The leaders have criticised the college in the wake of the allegations levelled by Premvardhan Birhade, a former BBA student of the college. Birhade, in a video posted on social media, alleged that he lost his job offer with a London based firm because Modern College officials did not provide the reference verification. ”Modern College did not provide the reference verification as required by the London based firm which sought to recruit me. I lost the job opportunity because I belong to the Scheduled Caste category…I am a Buddhist,” he said.

Nivedita Ekbote said,”I have never met Prem. I have nothing against him as I hardly knew him. As a teacher, I will always bless him. We want him to make progress in life and make a name for himself and his family.”

The principal said, “The job the youth was being employed was related to airport security. It was highly sensitive. In the questionnaire sent to us, it was mentioned that it was an offence if we give false information. So we wanted to ensure that we provide all the correct details. We received the questionnaire on September 30. They sought recommendations which included details about behavioural aspects and other things. We have given thousands of recommendation letters but in this case since the job was of sensitive nature, we wanted to ensure that we provide the correct details. We asked the student to wait a little so that we can provide the full details as required. In the meantime, he made the allegations related to caste which was very unfortunate….The issue of caste or mention of caste does not crop up in our institute unless the students come for getting scholarships.”

In his social media post, Rohit Pawar asked the state government to remove the principal from its core committee to frame policies for youth and sports. ”If the committee has persons who follow Manuwadi ideology and those who harbour caste grudges, then what will be the future of the state’s youngsters ?”

The principal said,”Rohit Pawar does not know me, does not know how the institute has been run for 70 years and yet he is making wild allegations relating to caste bias. In all these years, no one ever made such allegations against our institute. This is because our college has a family like atmosphere where we treat students from different social backgrounds as our own children.”

Rohit Pawar said Modern College failed to verify the documents in time which resulted in the student losing his job opportunity in London. ”Is the Modern College administration behaving with the same mentality which led to the attempt to throw a shoe at the Chief Justice of India?” he asked.

College vice-principal Shayamant Deshmukh said, ”When Prem was going abroad for further education, our college had given him a letter of recommendation… The London firm had sent an email seeking verification of the student. In that mail, the firm had not given any deadline to provide the reference verification. The college provided the details to the firm on October 14…It took time to respond as we wanted to furnish accurate data needed for a sensitive job like aviation security.”

Earlier, Prakash Ambedkar, who heads the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, had also criticised the college and its principal. ”’College principal Nivedita Gajanan Ekbote is also the vice-president of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. In view of her political and ideological alignment with Manuwadi BJP, one can only imagine the caste prejudice which must have shaped her actions against SC, ST, OBC students.”

The VBA chief said, ”Prem’s case is a glaring example of how systemic caste discrimination continues to haunt Dalit youth even after they break through enormous social and economic barriers.”