Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student’s wing of RSS, has swept the elections of University of Hyderabad students union.
The right wing group has wrested the control of the union from an alliance of the left and Dalit organisations after a long gap of eight years.
The right wing group bagged all the 8 posts of the union. Aarti Nagpal, a PhD scholar in psychology was elected as the president defeating Erram Naveen of the Students Federation of India, a left wing group.
While Aarti poled 1663 votes, her rival polled 1329 votes. There was a three cornered contest for the post as Sreeja Vasthavi of United Democratic Alliance was also in the fray.
ABVP had won the HCU Students Union polls earlier in 2010. The victor this time was a big boost for the ABVP as it was under fire for the last four years over the suicide by a Dalit research scholar Rohit Vemula in the same campus. Several Dalit organisations had held ABVP responsible for Vemula’s suicide saying it misused its clout with the ruling BJP leaders to get Vemula suspended form the university hostel.