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Coimbatore
A spruced up Avinashilingam misses out on PM’s visit
February 2, 2016
As most would have learnt in the news, PM Modi was to attend two functions and a public meeting in Coimbatore on Tuesday. But as claimed by official sources one function was cancelled due to security reasons. And, because of this the organisers of the function suffered not only disappointment but also heavy financial losses.
The function that he was originally slated to attend was the Graduation Day at Avinashilingam Deemed University. This was planned to be held after the ESIC Medical College inauguration and before the public meeting.
However, as already 6,000 police personnel were deployed for the other two programmes, they felt that extending security to this function would not be feasible. According to a BJP Party functionary the other two programmes were held in places that were a little removed from the heart of the city while the university was in the heart of the city and so the police were not keen on the PM attending the graduation.
While all this would sound logical, the fallout of this decision hit Avinashilingam authorities badly. The university had gone all out to spruce up the university worthy of a PM’s visit. But only that the PM did not visit. According to university sources, three full days and a few lakhs of rupees were spent pruning the trees, cleaning and decorating the university grounds.
Not only that. Even invitations were printed with the name of the PM on it. It was decided that he would hand over the degree certificates to Ph.D. scholars, M.Phil. scholars, and PG candidates.
It was a double whammy for the university when the second chief guest too expressed his inability to attend the graduation. When the university came to know that the PM was not attending they confirmed H. Devaraj, Vice-Chairman, University Grants Commission, as the chief guest, and once again had the invites printed. Once the Vice-chairman backed out, the university had to turn to the Chancellor as its last resort.
Finally, the graduation was held on Tuesday with Chancellor Dr. P.R. Krishnakumar as the chief guest.
