Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of RSS and BJP, had an impressive win at the college level polls in Madhya Pradesh by defeating NSUI in six out of seven universities.
College level direct elections were held in Madhya Pradesh after a gap of 30 years. The college polls were stopped in state in 1987 when Congress chief minister Motilal Vora banned them due to extreme violence. Earlier, college elections were done on merit basis and no voting was done among students. Recently the state higher education department initiated the process of college level elections.
Elections were held on Monday in 533 colleges and six universities of the state. Among these, BJP and ABVP had claimed that it had won at over 80 percent of places. However, Congress student wing National Students Union of India (NSUI) secretary Vivek Tripathi, too, claimed that they or NSUI-supported candidates have won at 325 colleges.
Tripathi said: “The elections were rigged by the BJP government through its teachers. It is surprising that we won majority of class representatives elections yet we lost college level posts”.
BJP state president Nandkumar Chouhan said that winning of college level polls by ABVP is a clear approval of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh's policies.
Out of the seven universities, the results of Rani Durgavati Vishwavidyalaya, Jabalpur, has been put on hold. Interestingly, both NSUI and ABVP have celebrated their victories in the elections. The student wing of Aam Admi party—CYSS—has also registered victory at around dozen places.
Violence was reported at many places including Bhopal university and colleges in Guna. In Government College, Chachora, in Guna district, NSUI alleged that their elected class representative had been kidnapped. In three colleges of Katni and in Churhat and Tikamgarh, AAP won the elections. In most of Bhopal's colleges, ABVP candidates have won the elections. In Bhopal University, NSUI candidates won several class representatives posts while ABVP bagged the post of president, vice president, secretary and joint secretary. ABVP also won in Hoshangabad, Itarsi, Sohagpur, Seoni Malwa, Pachmari, Pipariya PG College, Girls College Pipariya and Athner.
Maitri Mahajan, granddaughter of Loksabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan, was also elected as class representative in Devi Ahilya University, Indore, where she is student of Educational Media Research Centre. She was tipped to be fielded for the post of president from the side of ABVP but later ABVP decided in favour of someone else.
