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OBC sympathisers in ABVP voted for Left, claim JNU insiders

RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), however, failed to bag a single seat in the central panel. ABVP activists and students in the campus are attributing their loss to faulty poll strategy.

“We got carried away by the fact that we were able to win a seat in last year’s central panel. We became too ambitious and tried to grab all the posts despite knowing that JNU is a Left-bastion. Frankly speaking, there was a fair chance this year if we had focused on one or two posts. But the miscalculation of our strength led to our defeat,” admitted a senior ABVP cadre. “ABVP has taken the loss as a lesson and looks forward to rebuilding its base in the left bastion of JNU,” added the ABVP member.

Rumours in the campus have it, that one of the reasons of ABVP’s decimation was the caste factor within its ranks. “One of the central panel candidates of OBC background in ABVP was denied presidential candidature. This resulted in many of the OBC symphathisers within ABVP to vote for BAPSA, who espouse  OBC causes along with Dalits and Adivasis,” said a Ph.D Scholar.     

After the February 9 incident where anti- national slogans were allegedly raised, ABVP jumped into prominence. It tried to use the nationalist versus anti-national debate to its advantage in the current polls. This was ABVP’s major poll plank. 

This growing confidence even rattled the dominant Left of the campus to close rank with other Left parties and combat the ABVP unitedly. Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and All India Students’ Association (AISA) joined hands while, Kanhaiya’s All India Students Federation (AISF), which didn’t contest polls this year, rendered outside support. Despite united-Left’s win over ABVP, the fledgling BAPSA seems a force to reckon with in JNUSU.
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