Thiruvananthapuram, Jan. 10: Politics cast its shadow on a Kerala campus today, when the principal of a college refused to share the dais with a Marxist legislator.

Simon Britto, the nominated Anglo-Indian legislator belonging to the CPM, had been invited as chief guest to Sacred Heart College at Thevara in Kochi to preside over the annual inauguration of the college union, comprising elected student representatives and nominated staff.

A wheelchair-bound Britto was welcomed by a boisterous crowd of students and escorted to the programme in a procession.

The union thought Britto was an ideal invitee. A firebrand student leader during the Emergency, Britto had also borne the brunt of campus violence. He had sustained serious injuries when he was repeatedly stabbed by rival students near Government Maharajah’s College in Kochi on October 14, 1983.

But the euphoria that greeted him soon turned to shock when Principal A.J. Xavier, a priest of the Carmelite order, said he would keep off the inauguration as the college union had not consulted him before finalising the chief guest.

Britto refused to stay on, saying the principal’s boycott was like a slap on his face. He immediately contacted Assembly Speaker K. Radhakrishnan, complaining that the college authorities had shown disrespect to a legislator.

The pro-Marxist SFI, which controls the college union, is likely to turn the incident into an issue.

Britto feels that rather than a personal insult, the principal’s move is an affront to the office of a lawmaker who has been elected by the people. The matter is likely to be raised in the Assembly.