The Hindu : New Delhi News : Disturbing trends for ABVP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Sep 21, 2006
ePaper

New Delhi

New Delhi

Disturbing trends for ABVP

Elections are all about numbers. And no one really knows that better than the side that loses. To find out the reason for their losses in the recent Delhi University Students' Union elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyathri Parishad (ABVP) has carried out an analysis of the available data.

While the student outfit might be grasping at straws to find flimsy excuses for its lack of support in the University, its analysis does bring to the fore some disturbing trends that have become part of student politics on the campus. Dummy candidates, for instance.

"The presidential candidate of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI), Amrita Dhawan, won with 13,000 votes. Last year when she stood for vice-president, she got 18,300 votes, which means that she got fewer votes this time round. The United Students' candidate, Aditya Dar, got 4,300 votes. He fought on the anti-reservation platform, so he split the votes," says Rajiv Babbar, a former ABVP activist.

The NSUI had also fielded a dummy candidate, Gargi Papaneja, for all four seats up for election and she ate into the ABVP vote share, the group claims. Since the ABVP presidential candidate was Gargi Lakhanpal, the same name was bound to cause confusion, the analysis concludes.

Following a similar trend, the ABVP analysis points to many other such coincidences. The vice-president's seat was won by the ABVP's Vikas Dhaiya by a thin margin. The reason why the ABVP just managed to scrape through has also been ascribed to the dummy candidate.

"We lost the post of secretary by just 858 votes. But actually there was an Indian National Students Organisation (INSO) candidate called Vikas. He had the same ballot number as that of the ABVP's Vikas who was running for the post of vice-president. Incidentally, Vikas from the INSO is from Kirori Mal College and our Vikas was the president of the KMC students' union in his time. So people got confused," contends Mr. Babbar.

With the dummy candidates Gargi and Vikas polling 5,278 votes, the ABVP believes that these votes were for their candidate or their ideology.

Dubbing the NSUI victory as merely a technical win, the ABVP might have seriously looked at the results to find out why they lost, but to move forward, the student outfit needs more to do more than just "analyse".

***

Looking beyond "isms" in history, Jesus and Mary College has organised a two-day workshop to debate the whole spectrum from fascism to mysticism. The workshop aims at exposing the students to different discourses through the course of history. With most students often limiting their study of history to their textbooks, the workshop is expected to give students access to the larger philosophical aspects to these debates. Speakers at the workshop will include academics such as Aditya Mukherjee, Mahesh Rangarajan, Kumkum Roy, Susan Visvanathan, Bipin Chandra and Achin Vanaik.

***

There are plenty of options for those who want to head for greener pastures in Britain, especially for higher education opportunities. Part of the UK-India Education and Research Initiative that was launched in an endeavour to improve educational relations between India and the UK, 10 Ph.D. scholarships will be available for students in the next academic year.

And to further this cause, a day-long discussion was held with a panel of leading educationists from India who evaluated the proposals for educational collaboration between India and the UK submitted by various universities and research centres. While the details still have to be worked out, the British Council also announced the doctoral research scholarships meant for students who want to do a Ph.D., D.Phil. or some other course from a British institution. Scholarships will also be given to those who have an excellent academic background to carry out research leading to Ph.D. or D.Phil. at institutions in Britain.

Candidates from all disciplines can apply, but the majority of the awards are likely to be in areas related to science and technology. The application forms can be downloaded from the website www.ukieri.org

The scholarships are fully funded and include academic fees, international airfare and a monthly stipend to cover living expenses.

-- Mandira Nayar

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi

News Update

Stories in this Section