The vice-chancellor and registrar of Gujarat University found themselves locked in for almost an hour after angry supporters of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the student wing of Congress, stormed the varsity demanding fresh elections.

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The supporters alleged malpractice and demanded fresh election for the UG commerce seat. Interestingly, the police played the part of a silent observer in the fracas and later 'freed' the officials after an hour.

The NSUI members were apparently unhappy with the way polling was conducted for the 10 seats of Gujarat University's senate, a student representative body. 

They claimed that lots of malpractices were found and reported to GU officials but no action was taken. The angry students including dozens of girls thronged the GU's administrative building on Wednesday afternoon.  They locked the registrar Minesh Patel and vice-chancellor Parimal Trivedi and shouted slogans for almost an hour. Heated arguments ensued between students and varsity officials and police soon arrived on campus. The students were later dispersed and the officials 'freed'.

The bone of contention was the senate's seat for undergraduate commerce in which NSUI candidate Krishna Patel, the lone female candidate in the election and ABVP's Surprit Patel were opponents. According to NSUI, Surprit has many criminal cases against him.

They said that the JM Lyngdoh Committee had clearly stated that students with criminal cases pending against them cannot contest elections. "Despite this, Gujarat University official let Surprit fight the election. Malpractice also took place in counting of votes," said a student, supporting NSUI.

The angry students threatened to approach the Supreme Court if the varsity failed to take any action. Vice-chancellor Trivedi and registrar Patel could not be contacted for their comments.