The committee upheld the decision to disqualify Kataria based on two such complaints…reports Asian Lite News
Five days after Karan Kataria, a 23-year-old student of London School of Economics (LSE) was disqualified from the student union elections, the committee, which heard his appeal to the decision, told, “Karan’s Indian or Hindu identity never played a role in our decision to disqualify him.”
On condition of anonymity, a member of the all-student LSE committee that took the decision, told Quint, “We made the decision based on complaints that he intimidated student voters.”
Originally from Haryana, Kataria, an LLM student at LSE’s School of Law has been alleging that he’s been discriminated against by the LSE Student Union (LSESU) due to his “Indian and Hindu identity.” He also claimed the presence of a “smear campaign” against him.
Member of LSE committee that disqualified Karan Kataria said, “There was nothing Hinduphobic around us disqualifying him from the student union polls. His Hindu identity was not a matter of consideration when we made this decision. Karan’s belief that the committee which made the decision was Hinduphobic…. I can guarantee you that that’s not the case since the committee itself is extremely diverse.”
Kataria had slammed the LSE Student Union (LSESU) after he was disqualified from contesting the General Secretary’s post, stating that instead of punishing those responsible for the alleged smear campaign against him, the student body cancelled his candidature “without providing any proof or evidence of the allegations.”
The committee member told The Quint that they received Kataria’s appeal after the returning officer, who is tasked with ensuring that a free and fair vote takes place, made a decision to disqualify him.
“We received seven different complaints from LSE students, alleging that Karan coerced their votes,” said the committee member.
The committee upheld the decision to disqualify Kataria based on two such complaints.
Narrating the incident, the committee member said, “We watched the CCTV footage where we saw that Karan went up to the complainant, who was sitting at LSE’s Centre (CBG) Building, and makes her scan a QR code.”
“They don’t know what they’re scanning and Karan subsequently takes their phone, votes for himself and returns the phone. We saw this happen and the student in question filed a complaint,” they added.
To ascertain that Kataria voted for himself using a fellow student’s phone, the committee matched the time stamp of the complainant’s vote to the CCTV footage where they saw that at the time of the vote being cast, “Kataria was holding the student’s phone.”
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