The victory comes after last year’s election, when the communal right wing ABVP had won the Students’ Union after a long gap. The unity of Left and Ambedkarite forces had not been consolidated at that time. This year, the expanded alliance, with the inclusion of AISA, brought together a broader student movement and received an overwhelming mandate from the student community against the ABVP and its allies.
The ABVP-SLVD panel won the post of Sports Secretary and one post in ICC-GS-CASH, while ABVP was largely limited to a few seats at the school level.
The election also saw a sharp contest over the Cultural Secretary post. When Abhinash Kumar won by a margin of five votes against the ABVP candidate, ABVP demanded a recount. The Election Commission then handed over the decision to the Vice-Chancellor and the Dean of Students’ Welfare. Students resisted this unprecedented move to hand over the decision on a student union election to the university administration and gheraoed the Vice-Chancellor. Following the student protest, the Election Commission rejected the demand for a recount and declared Abhinash Kumar elected as Cultural Secretary.
The victory at the University of Hyderabad reflects the growing unity of Left and Ambedkarite student forces and the rejection of ABVP’s pro-administration and anti-student politics. It also comes in the context of a nationwide student movement against the failures and policies of the BJP government, the same movement that forced the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and is now demanding the resignation of CEC Gyanesh Kumar.
