ISM students, armed with letters for Rahul Gandhi, outside the post office in Dhanbad on Tuesday. (Gautam Dey)

If you value our vote, give us our IIT.

ISM students have persuaded their parents to write letters to Rahul Gandhi, asking him to live up to his promise and give IIT status to the premiere mining university of Dhanbad.

Parents of over 5,000 students have already started writing to the Congress general secretary making it clear that they would not vote for the Congress if he did not push for a bill to be brought in Parliament on the promised upgrade.

More than 1,000 of these letters, written by parents during Durga Puja vacations, have already been posted by students ever since they returned to campus on November 10. These have been addressed to Rahul at 24, Akbar Road, New Delhi.

On Tuesday, around 500 more letters were posted.

During his last visit to ISM in Dhanbad on October 14, 2009, Rahul assured students of his support to their campaign for IIT status. He reiterated his commitment to the “cause” when a group of students, led by Divir Tiwari, met him in Delhi on September 16, 2011.

ISM students met the Congress general secretary in New Delhi again during the first week of September this year when they also held a demonstration at Jantar Mantar, ahead of a crucial IIT Council meeting.

“Though we are hopeful of getting the bill introduced in the winter session of Parliament, the move to send letters to him is basically aimed at expediting the process,” said Shashank Shekhar, a member of ISM’s core committee constituted about six months ago to step up the campaign.

“We are also putting pressure on the Centre through MPs and our alumni in the corporate sector by asking them to write letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, urging him to expedite the process of upgradation,” said Shekhar.

The ISM campaign for IIT status was launched in 2009 with the executive board, the university’s highest decision making body, passing a resolution on August 18, 2009. Students, teachers and alumni later stepped up their campaign and also met HRD minister Kapil Sibal, MPs, MLAs, heads of various corporate houses, and several other leaders.

Jharkhand Cabinet cleared a proposal favouring the upgrade on August 30, 2011 while a resolution was passed by the Assembly on September 3, 2011 and forwarded to the Centre.

Planning Commission also backed the move and on December 14, 2012 asked the IIT Council to okay the matter. The council, which met in January this year, has sought a review of the proposal by an experts’ committee.

The six-member committee comprising former IIT directors met for the first time on September 11 and followed it up with several more meetings. It is likely to table a report soon.

“As the report is likely to presented soon, we want to put pressure on the Centre to move a bill in Parliament as it is the first step to ratify such a move,” said Shekhar.