People's Democracy

SFI Wins HPU Elections

The central executive committee of the Students’ Federation of India has issued the following statement on August 18.

THE central executive committee of the Students’ Federation of India congratulates the Himachal Pradesh state committee for registering clean sweep in the SCA elections of the Himachal Pradesh University for 23rd time in the past 29 years, as well as winning a large number of seats in the various colleges of the state. The SFI has won all the four seats of the panel with Rajan Hartta winning the presidential post, Gopal Singh becoming vice president, Piyush Sewal winning the secretary post and Monika Dhadda winning the joint secretary post. SFI candidates in all the four seats defeated ABVP candidates with victory margins being 194, 5, 247 and 267 votes respectively. SFI also won 32 department representatives (DRs) out of the total 50 DRs in the HPU.

The SFI also swept the entire panel in the lone girls college in the state, Rajkiya Kanya Mahavidyayala of Shimla. In the Evening College, Shimla, the SFI retained all the four central posts. Out of nearly 200 central posts contested in the colleges of the entire state, SFI won 74 central posts. In five Colleges, SFI lost the presidential post by very thin margins of 10 to 15 votes.

These results have been achieved in spite of the fact that there was a tacit understanding between the NSUI and the ABVP. In Hamirpur - the assembly seat of former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and also the home town of the state president of the Congress Sukhwinder Sukhhu, SFI has swept all 15 central seats. It is to be noted that SFI activist Rohit was murdered in Hamirpur last year by the ABVP goons for protesting against eve teasing. This is for the first time the performance of SFI has been such impressive in Hamirpur.

Even in Mandi - the home district of chief minister Veerbhadra singh - SFI has won 11 central seats giving a fitting response to the ruling Congress party. Results in many colleges show that both the NSUI and the ABVP have transferred votes to each other’s candidates on different posts, so that the SFI candidates could be defeated. In the run up to the students’ union elections, college administration at many places acted at the behest of the ruling Congress party to cancel the nominations of many of the SFI candidates on some pretext or the other. In many places the Congress and the BJP goons kidnapped entire panels of the SFI.

Facing such difficulties, the SFI has emerged as not only victorious in the students’ union elections, but also as the preferred choice of the student community of the state.

These results show the faith that the students have in the SFI. It is this faith with which we have been able to defeat every anti-student move of the ruling classes. Even in this year’s elections, SFI went into the polls on the agenda of intensifying the fight against RUSA (Rashtriya Uchchtar Shiksha Abhiyaan) - a clear neo-liberal model of higher education which has been pushed through in the state in the name of quality and student centric system, but has actually restricted the entry to higher education. Election results are clearly a mandate against RUSA and all other anti-student measures of the state and central governments. As the September 10 ‘Dilli Chalo’ call of the CEC draws nearer, this mandate will be channelised into even bigger mobilisations.