Varanasi: Shivam Sonkar, a Dalit student aspiring to join the PhD program at Banaras Hindu University’s (BHU) Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, continued his sit-in protest outside the Vice Chancellor’s residence for the 14th consecutive day on Thursday.

The demonstration began after Shivam’s application for the research program was denied due to limited seats in the non-Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) category of the Research Entrance Test (RET), which offers only three spots.

On Thursday, BHU Rector Professor Sanjay Kumar, currently serving as the Officiating Vice Chancellor, invited Shivam to his office and promised to review his admission case. Despite this assurance, Shivam vowed to persist with his dharna until his enrollment is officially confirmed, expressing skepticism until concrete action is taken.

Shivam explained his predicament, stating, “The PhD program has seven total seats—four under the JRF category and three under the non-JRF category via the RET. I applied for the non-JRF seats and ranked second. However, with no reserved seat for the Scheduled Caste (SC) category in the RET, all three spots were allocated to general and OBC candidates.”

He further stated, “Three of the four JRF seats remain vacant, and the university has the power to reassign those unfilled slots to other categories. I urged the administration to admit me under the JRF category, but they rejected my plea. The RET results were announced on March 20, and I’ve been protesting here since March 21.”