Striking employees, students refuse to hold dialogue with incumbent office bearers
DHARAN, JULY 1
The agitators at BP Koirala Institute of Health and Sciences in Dharan have refused to sit for talks with the institute's office bearers. Responding to the vice-chancellor's call for talks, the agitating doctors, staff and students have said it would be meaningless to sit for talks with the office bearers.
"As the office bearers have lost moral ground to hold talks with us, there is no way we will sit for talks with them," said Junior Resident Welfare Society Chairperson Rajendra Ghimire. Further, attributing the anarchy at the institute to the 'incapacity' of the office bearers, Ghimire said their bottomline was that all the four office bearers - Vice-chancellor Gyanendra Giri, Rector Dr Guru Prasad Khanal, Registrar Dr Mohanchandra Regmi and Director Dr Gaurishankar Sah - resign from their positions.
"The incumbent office bearers, all four, must resign from their posts or be removed, and the government must form a high-level talks team. We can sit for talks with such a team only," Ghimire clarified.
Earlier, VC Giri, last night had issued a statement inviting the agitating side for talks, saying delivering the institute from the present crisis was possible only through healthy discussion among stakeholders. The vice-chancellor, in his statement, had also expressed confidence that the present agitation would be instrumental in pulling the institute out of the throes of the crisis facing it.
Commenting on the news reports that he had participated in talks with the struggle committee of the agitators earlier, Giri called the news reports false, claiming the news reports were malicious and intended to defame him. He also said he hadn't abused anyone during the Tuesday's talks in any way.
The agitators, by padlocking the offices of the office bearers, had demanded that the office bearers either be made to resign or sacked.
Besides, they had also demanded that a high-level talks team be formed with the prime minister's initiative and future office bearers of the institute be selected on the recommendations of experts or related commissions.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 2 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
