HYDERABAD: After an eight-year hiatus,

(ABVP) on Saturday swept the University of Hyderabad (UoH) students union elections (2018-19) and bagged all top posts, including that of the university president.

The elections were conducted on October 5 and saw a 75% student turnout.

ABVP’s Aarti N Nagpal, a PhD scholar, bagged the president’s post, garnering 1,663 votes. She defeated her rivals — Student Federation of India’s Erram Naveen Kumar and United Democratic Alliance’s G Sreeja Vasthavi — by a significant margin. The two managed to get 1,329 and 842 votes respectively.

ABVP also won the posts of vice-president, general secretary, joint secretary, sports secretary and cultural secretary. The last time a student body swept all posts was in 2010. Terming Saturday’s outcome historic, its members said the results came as a “huge breather” as they had lost the last two elections by thin margins.

In 2016, following PhD scholar and Dalit student Rohith Vemula’s suicide, most seats were bagged by the United Front for Social Justice, a collective of several student outfits led by Ambedkar Students Association and SFI, fighting against caste and class discrimination in educational institutions.

The following year, the same organisations, regrouped under Alliance for Social Justice banner and walked away with the top posts. This time, however, the team (under UDA), failed to make a mark.