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Unique protest marks DUTA polls

The symbolic protest was led by Professor Anupam Kumar, a guest teacher at PGDAV (evening) and Satyawati (evening) college, who has been fighting for the rights of women ad hoc teachers for the last few years

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The polls were held to elect the DUTA president
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The Delhi University's Teachers Association (DUTA) elections on Thursday witnessed an unusual form of protest titled "laugh at leaders" by a section of ad hoc teachers over their long pending demand for maternity leave.

The symbolic protest was led by Professor Anupam Kumar, a guest teacher at PGDAV (evening) and Satyawati (evening) college, who has been fighting for the rights of women ad hoc teachers for the last few years.

"We did not boycott the election but we held this symbolic protest wherein we simply laughed at the candidates present outside the polling booths over their inability of delivering the long-pending demand of maternity leaves by ad hoc teachers," he said.

Nearly 4,500 ad hoc teachers are working for the varsity which is around half of the total positions in the University. Their contracts renew after every 120 days and are not entitled to any benefits including medical and maternity leave.

"This is really sad that our teacher representatives could not fight for the basic rights of our ad hoc teachers. They always talk about their absorption but what about their right to get maternity leave?" Kumar asked.

"I have also written to the PMO and the HRD ministry regarding the issue. I also filed a public grievance in October 2015 seeking attention of the PMO on the issue of child and maternity leave of around 2500 female maternity leave working in the University," he said.

Meanwhile, 70 percent turnout was seen DUTA election. The election was for the office of president and 15 members of executive committee. However, results were awaiting by the time this report was filed.

The DUTA president is elected for a single two-year term. Earlier in 2015, the Left-affiliated Democratic Teachers' Front (DTF) candidate Nandita Narain won the election bagging 2,390 out of total 6,068 votes polled followed by BJP-backed teacher's wing National Democratic Teachers Front (NDTF) candidate VS Negi who got 2,165 votes.

Congress party's teachers unit, Indian National Teachers Congress (INTEC) did not field any candidate this year following their 'poor' performance in 2015. INTEC's candidate Sanjay Kumar had received only 536 votes in the last elections.

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