SECURITY BLANKET: A student tries to enter Presidency College on Thursday. (Pradip Sanyal)

An Alimuddin Street outfit has made autonomy for Presidency College — an idea rejected by the CPM for over three decades — its main poll plank to retain control over the students’ union.

Desperate to win votes in Friday’s student union elections, after having wrested control from the Independents’ Consolidation (IC), the CPM’s student wing is crowing about its role in unshackling the college from the clutches of government control.

“We are basing our campaign on how we persuaded the government to grant autonomy to our college. What others couldn’t do, we have done for our college and that’s a genuine claim,” said the state SFI general secretary, Kaustav Chatterjee.

The SFI claim is an antithesis of the CPM’s stand on autonomy for Presidency College. Though the proposal to free up Presidency kept coming back, the education czars in the party fiercely opposed academic, financial and administrative freedom for the college in the name of “democratising education”.

It is common knowledge that only a push from chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, an alumnus of the institute, has cleared the decks for the college to get unitary university status.

“In the past few years, issues like Nandigram and Singur dominated the campaign strategy, but this year it is autonomy,” said a student. “It’s good that the college election is being fought on an issue that has a direct bearing on us.”

Not just the SFI, their opponents in the triangular contest — IC and Trinamul Chhatra Parishad (TCP) — are also biting into the autonomy pie.

According to a Trinamul student leader, the chief minister was forced to initiate the autonomy process after Mamata Banerjee had criticised the state government for failing to free Presidency. The TCP is contesting 13 seats and the post of the girls’ common room secretary.

“We have been fighting for the college’s autonomy since 2006 and it has always been our issue,” claimed Joy Saha, an IC leader.

Around 2,000 students are expected to vote on Friday — under an unprecedented security cover — to select 70 class representatives and one girls’ common room secretary.

There was tension on the College Street campus on Thursday when two ex-students — Hiya, daughter of Manab Mukherjee, and Saptarshi, son of Goutam Deb, — were spotted. “The principal had given clear instructions that ex-students were not allowed, but Hiya and Saptarshi defied the order and we protested that,” said an IC supporter.