The Ambedkar Students’ Association-Students’ Federation of India-Dalit Students’ Union (ASA-SFI-DSU) alliance swept the University of Hyderabad Students’ Union election on Saturday, February 25. The victory ensured that Prajwal, a Dalit student belonging to the Mahar community, became the president of the Students’ Union. Prajwal received 1,838 votes while the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP)-OBC Federation-Sevalal Vidhyarthi Dal alliance candidate, Balakrishna, polled 1,230 votes.
The ASA-SFI-DSU alliance won all the posts – vice president, general secretary, joint secretary, sports secretary, and cultural secretary. A Dalit trans woman Hritik Laxman Lalan was also elected to the post of the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment.
Pruthvi Sai of the ASA-SFI-DSU won the vice president post with 1,860 votes, Kripa Maria George won the general secretary post with 2,076 votes, Kathi Ganesh won the joint secretary post with 1,617 votes, and C H Jayaraj won the sports secretary post with 1,644 votes. Likith Kumar was elected to the post of cultural secretary post with 1,789 votes.
The Alliance for Social Democracy – an alliance of the Bahujan Students Front, Fraternity Movement, Muslim Students Federation-National Students Union of India, and Tribal Students Forum – came third in all seats. The Youth for Inclusive and Sustainable Society (YISS) and the All India Students’ Association (AISA) had also contested the elections. Speaking about the victory, ASA president Sabari G Rajan, said, “Though we were confident about the victory, we did not expect a huge mandate. We were also scared as the ABVP accessed the email address of the students and spread rumours against our candidate for president, besides spreading rumours on social media. This kind of attack was not expected.”
The SFI in a statement said that they made the centralisation of education, corporatisation, stopping of universities’ autonomy, revocation of fellowships, and the implementation of entrance examinations like the Common University Entrance Test for national admission as their election issues. Though the elections were held peacefully, there was a minor clash between the SFI and ABVP students at a hostel on the campus, a day before the elections. The Students’ Union election was last held in 2019 and could not be conducted later owing to the COVID-19 crisis.