People's Democracy

SFI Registers Big Wins in Rajasthan

THE central executive committee (CEC) of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) has extended its greetings to the students of Rajasthan for giving the organisation its biggest ever mandate in the history of student union elections in the state. The CEC of SFI also took the opportunity to congratulate the Rajasthan state committee of the organisation.

It is to be noted that the SFI contested 156 college and university seats in the elections held in the state on August 25, and its candidates won in 224 central posts in these colleges. The SFI recorded its victory on the president posts in 56 colleges. The most notable victory of the SFI was registered in the Government Sri Kalyan College in Sikar which happens to be the biggest college in Rajasthan with a strength of over nine thousand students. SFI candidates won all the four central posts --- of the president, general secretary, vice president and assistant secretary --- in this college with a majority of more than a thousand votes in each of these posts. In the second largest college of the state, namely the Government Dungar College of Bikaner, SFI candidates won on the three central posts with huge majorities.

These student union elections in Rajasthan were held after a long gap of six years. It was the SFI which consistently fought against this attack on the democratic rights of the students. It was the former BJP government its chief minister, Basundhara Raje Sindhia, which unleashed this attack by banning the student union elections in the state.

The SFI continued its struggle against the present Congress government, too, which was unwilling to hold the student union elections despite its earlier promises to do so. Militant programmes from the unit level upward were conducted and students under the leadership of SFI gheraoed the state assembly on the demand of student union elections. The fact that the student union elections were finally held, is in itself a very big victory of the democratic student movement in the state.

The SFI’s massive victory in the election is a vindication of the slogan of study and struggle which the SFI stands for.

SFI cadres in Rajasthan have fought day in and day out to provide an alternative to the bankrupt policies of the ABVP and NSUI.

The SFI statement, issued on this occasion by its all-India president P K Biju (member of parliament) and general secretary Ritabrata Banerjee, has expressed the confidence that the advances which the SFI has made in these elections will continue to grow and that the SFI would soon emerge as the biggest organisation in the state.