india

Updated: Sep 27, 2019 22:56 IST

Students affiliated to Leftist, Dalit and Adivasi organisations swept the student union elections at the University of Hyderabad, a central university, regaining hold over the student community, a year after they were trounced by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidya Parishad.

The elections were held amidst tight security on Thursday and the counting of votes took place at Ambedkar auditorium on the University campus at Gachibowli on Friday afternoon. The final results were announced later in the evening.

The alliance of the Student Federation of India (SFI), Dalit Students Union (DSU), Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) and Tribal Students’ Forum (TSF) bagged all the key posts of president, vice-president, general secretary and joint secretary.

Last year, the SFI contested the elections separately from Adivasi, Dalit, Bahujan, Muslim and tribal organisations which formed the United Democratic Alliance (UDA). In the triangular fight, the ABVP won the elections, for the first time in the previous eight years.

This time, the SFI was back into the alliance of Dalit, Left and Adivasi groups and won the elections with a comfortable majority. The ABVP joined hands with two other student groups — Other Backward Classes Federation (OBCF) and the newly formed Sevalal Vidyarthi Dal, but stood second.

Abhishek Nandan from SFI won the post of president, M.Sree Charan from DSU won the post of Vice President, Gopi Swamy from ASA became General Secretary, Rathod Pradeep from TSF won as Joint Secretary.

Sohel Ahmed from SFI won the Sports Secretary post and Priyanka Badrasetty from ASA became the Cultural Secretary.

To the posts of students representatives to GS-CASH (ICC), Puttapaga Sai Sree from DSU won as the integrated representative, Kalaivani J. from ASA won as the PG representative and Indira Tayeng from SFI won as the research scholars’ representative.

The alliance also won most of the school board and councillor posts. This year ASA-DSU-SFI-TSF alliance and ABVP-OBCF-SLVD were the main opposing sides who contested for all posts.

“The mandate attained through the victory is a reassurance of the student community towards the struggle seeking Justice for Rohith Vemula, and the struggles against exclusionary policies of BJP-led Centre in higher educational institutions,” ASA president M Iniyavan said, in a statement.

The UoH student union elections assumed significance on the lines of the elections in Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, which witnessed tough battle betweel left and right wing student groups.

The Hyderabad university has been witnessing the rise of Dalit groups result in a charge atmoshphere on the campus for the last three years, following the suicide of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula on January 17, 2016, after alleged caste-based discrimination on the campus.

Vemula had allegedly resorted to the extreme step following a protest along with four other Dalit students over their suspension by the university following a clash with an ABVP leader.