Speaking out against the BJP's student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), left-wing All India Students’ Association (AISA) on Sunday called upon all "democratic students’ organisations" to come together to fight and build a larger platform against ABVP in the upcoming Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections.
"Defeat BJP government’s Design to Destroy Public Funded Educational Institutions. Reclaim DUSU from the Clutches of Hooliganism! Students Will Oust Failed ABVP-led DUSU from the Union! Fake mark sheet, violence against teachers, betrayals with students' rights and communalisation of the syllabus can not be our Model of Union," AISA said in a statement on September 1.
Hitting out at the ABVP, the left-wing students' group said that the right-wing group was always indulging in violence on campus and also highlighted various incidents where they incited violence and alleged those went unpunished. "If we see the case of Delhi University, we have the ABVP-led Union being constantly engaged in violence on campus and trying to shut all democratic voices on campus. Right before the beginning of the new session, we saw the ABVP trying to disrupt the Academic council meeting in DU and intimidating the professors and interfering in the syllabus making process. Earlier this month, we saw the DUSU President Shakti Singh from ABVP illegally setting up the status of Savarkar along with the freedom fighters Bhagat Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose in front of Arts Faculty. Shakti Singh, who was promoted from the post of Vice-President after Ankiv Basioya, the elected DUSU President, was found to have been admitted on a fake degree, is the same person who unleashed open violence in Zakir Hussain College last year during DUSU election campaign. It was the DU administration nexus with the ruling party which let both Ankiv and Shakti go unpunished," AISA said in its statement.
"This year's student union election is happening at a time when the BJP government has come back to power with a greater majority. And the manifestations of their brute majority are clear. Even after having a full majority in center and winning in DUSU from past few years, the ABVP has not led a single initiative for ensuring students rights. Instead, it is using the platform to intimidate teachers and students and destroy the vibrant academic atmosphere of Delhi University. It is a time when all anti-ABVP students groups should come together and build a larger platform to defeat it and save our university," Kawapreet Kaur, President of Delhi AISA, said, commenting on the issue.
Calling upon all anti-ABVP students’ groups to come together and defeat the right-wing group in the upcoming elections, AISA urged, saying, "We believe that it is the time when all democratic and progressive forces should come together to defeat the BJP-led students' wing and set the model of joint struggles in the country."
