The alliance of Students Federation of India (SFI), Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA), Dalit Students’ Union (DSU) and Tribal Students Forum (TSF) swept the elections to form the Students Union for 2019-20 in University of Hyderabad on Friday. The Left-Progressive alliance trounced the incumbent ABVP alliance to bag all the posts on offer.
Abhishek Nandan from SFI was elected as the president after securing 2205 votes, Sree Charan from DSU was elected as the vice-president after getting 1843 votes, Gopi Swamy from ASA as the general secretary with 2039 votes, Kumar Ramavath from TSF as the joint secretary with 2040 votes, Priyanka Badrasetty from ASA as cultural secretary with 1898 votes and Sohel Ahamed from SFI as the sports secretary with 1776 votes.
In the elections which were held on September 26, more than 4,200 students participated.
Speaking about the victory, Abhishek Nandan, the newly-elected SU president said, “This historic mandate is against the RSS and ABVP, who are trying to curb dialogue on campus. The ABVP in its term didn’t protest at all when there was a fee hike or when there were attempts to privatise the university. Further, the RSS tried to capture the institution and made attempts to attack campus democracy, for which the students gave their answer.”
ASA through a statement said, “ASA believes that 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 the BJP-led Centre in higher educational institutions. As this is the last year Appa Rao is in office, we believe that this victory will also help make our voices against him louder, in academic council and elsewhere.”
The reason for the major victory is attributed to the alliance between SFI and ASA, who came together after two years. The alliance of SFI, ASA, DSU and TSF had earlier won in 2017 under the banner of Alliance for Social Justice.
The alliance did have a setback, however, as the Students Islamic Organisation which was an ally of the ASA had parted ways in the election as the alliance couldn't accommodate the Muslim Students' Federation. The two organisations contested the elections under the banner of Muslim Students Fraternity for the posts of president and vice president.
Speaking about the alliance with SFI, ASA President Iniyavan said, “There was a legitimate necessity for the ASA to be part of the Students’ Union. This was the main reason. Apart from that, we also wanted to stop the ABVP from winning the elections yet again.”