AISA Wins the Post of Vice-President in the Allahabad University Students’ Union (AUSU) Elections!

A Significant Advance of Students’ Agenda Against the Politics of Muscle Power, Dominant Power-Lobbies and Communalism!

In the AUSU elections this year, 2 out of five central panel posts have been won by the Left forces, while much hyped ‘saffron wave’ got reduced to 1 post!

The verdict of the Allahabad University Students’ Union Election held on 21^st November has manifested the aspiration of common students for a fundamental change inside the University for democracy, equality and struggle for students’ rights amidst an overall atmosphere of violence and lumpensim created by dominant casteist lobbies and ruling class political parties.

Comrade Neelu Jaiswal from AISA has won the post of Vice-President and comrade Vidyotma Maurya has been elected as the PG/Research Scholar representative from Arts Faculty. Comrade Pawan Kumar from AISA gave a tough fight to ABVP representative for the post of Joint Secretary and polled second in the post.  Other than AISA comrades, two representatives from AIDSO- comrade Ankush Dubey as Cultural Secretary and Comrade Vimsingh Chandel as UG representative from arts faculty have also got victory in the election.

The democratic space within students’ politics in the city has been strengthened by the victory of two left representatives out of five Central Panel Posts in AUSU. ABVP, the student wing of the RSS, which was trying to cash on the claimed NaMo wave got a major setback in the final results with only one post by a slender margin. The post of President and General Secretary have gone to Samajwadi Chhatra Parishad, the student wing of the SP.

Among the contesting forces in the election it was only AISA that kept the spirit of democracy, social justice and gender equality alive. While most of the candidates were busy displaying dominance of caste combinations, money and muscle power, it was only AISA that made the rights of common students and deprived sections an agenda of the election. The academic atmosphere of AU is marked by absence of basic minimum infrastructure and facilities. Books are not issued from the central library of the university. Most of the students do not get hostel and are forced to live in tiny sized rooms in rent. Most of the teaching posts are lying vacant and regular classes are a far-fetched dream of the students. Basic minimum facilities like photocopying, canteen or laboratories with updated instruments are absent from the university.  In such an atmosphere of academic anarchy, it is only AISA that has built up movement demanding these facilities throughout the year and has made these issues a fundamental point of election campaign.

In contrast to this, the rest of the forces and student wings of the ruling parties, be it SP or BJP, tried to cash on their position in power and opportunist combinations to mobilize votes. Devoid of any pro-student agenda, they contested the election by trying to polarize the campus on caste and communal lines. Several incidents of lumpenism targeting teachers from minority community, use of sexist abuse targeted at them or spreading the lie of love jihad were part of their pre-election preparations.

Along with raising issues of academic rights of the students inside the university, AISA also took up the task to expose the anti-people policies of these governments. Our campaigners and candidates urged students to make student wing of the ruling SP accountable on the question of increasing attack on women and dalits in UP under SP rule. The betrayal of the SP government on the question of social justice by not implementing the three tier reservation in Public Service Commission posts has also been exposed by AISA. The question of increasing unemployment in UP while thousands of government posts are lying vacant for years in UP was a part of election campaign of AISA. When the ABVP representatives thought they can win elections by naming NaMo, AISA comrades made them accountable among the common students on the question of CSAT, scam in SSC results, price rise, black money and communalization of academics and society.

The entire election process be it nomination rallies, election campaign or post-verdict violence has exposed the farce of Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations.  AU administration was a complicit witness to the open violence and show of money and muscle power by ABVP, SP and other dominant lobbies. Flouting all election norms, lakhs of rupees have been spent by the candidates. Big campaign hoardings in the city, luxury cars and lakhs of printed photos were all part of campaign by the lumpen and ruling class groups. Nomination rallies of these forces were marked by several rounds of firing and bombardment. Rampant violence between groups of candidates was common throughout the election period. In one such incident, a group of lumpens tried to attack our women comrades when they intervened to stop fatal attack on another candidate during campaign.

Immediately after the results were declared, ABVP goons started firing throughout the city and created hooliganism and violence. Along with ABVP, goons led by the outgoing president of AUSU who was supporting the anti-reservation lobby in the election, attacked the residence of the Election Commissioner. It is a real irony that Lyngdoh Committee which was introduced in the name of scuttling money and muscle power in the student union elections is only used to scuttle democratic rights and space for democratic forces in student politics (as is happening in JNU).

The result of the AUSU has encouraged the democratic movement and aspiration in the university. In the coming days, AISA is committed to carry forward the struggle against the dominant power lobbies and communal forces, against the anti-student regimes of the SP in UP and BJP at centre under the banner of AUSU and the progressive forces elected in the students union.