Chandigarh, November 28
The 67th session of the Indian History Congress, which was scheduled to be held from December 28 at Kurukshetra University, has been cancelled, the reason being the university did not want to hold the Congress without a particular VVIP inaugurating it.
Over 1,400 delegated from India and abroad were to attend the prestigious congress which now will be held in February next
year. This has cast a shadow on the ongoing golden jubilee celebrations of the university.
Ruffled by a request by Kurukshetra University to hold the session a week earlier than scheduled to ensure its inauguration by a VVIP, office-bearers of the congress refused to allow any change in dates. The university, however, still hopes of being allowed the change in dates. In anticipation, it has shifted the hosting of the All-India Conference of Economics to December- end.
Mr RP Rana, honorary secretary of the congress, said the venue had been finalised in January during the last session of the congress in West Bengal. The dates were finalised by the university in June this year. “In August, office-bearers of the congress visited the university to oversee arrangements. However, on November 13, barely a month and a half before the session was to be inaugurated, we were told the session should be pre-poned by a week. We could have allowed a postponement but preponing of an event in not possible,” said Prof Rana.
He said the university had refused to explain in writing why the
session needed to be held earlier than planned.
The secretary of the congress, Prof BP Sahu, has sent letters to its members (numbering nearly 7,000) stating that the university “has shown its inability to host the 67th session of the congress from December 28-30 or any other later dates.”
Vice-Chancellor Prof RP Hooda, however, denied the university had expressed inability to host the congress. “We asked the office-bearers in October for shifting dates for ‘internal’ reasons. They had enough time to do so but they consider these dates sacrosanct,” he said. He refused to spell out these “internal reasons”.
He said all arrangements had been made to host the congress. “We had collected Rs 25 lakh for the event and made staying arrangements for over a thousand persons.”
Highly placed sources in the university pointed out that both the VC and the Haryana Chief Minister had been trying to get a VVIP to inaugurate the congress. But the dates fixed for the congress did not suit the VVIP. However, the dates from December 20 to 22 were okayed by the VVIP.
In a letter dated November 10, Prof Sahu wrote to the VC explaining how the delegates attending the congress would have to change their travel plans in case the dates were changed. “I, therefore, must reaffirm …that you continue with the dates fixed by you yourself for our 67th session. If you are not able to accede to this request (for reason still not clear to me), I would like a communication to this effect so that we may be able to make alternative arrangements at some other university (hopefully less erratic in meeting its commitments) for our session at such later dates as allow our members adequate notice.”
