While the Left-affiliated or independent students’ unions bagged all seats in all faculties, like in the previous years, in the polls in the Jadavpur Univeristy (JU), the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) made a mark finishing second in the Engineering faculty ahead of the SFI. The ABVP contested the polls for the first time in the main panels of the JU, known for being a Left bastion. After a gap of three years, the students’ body polls took place on Wednesday, results of which were declared on Thursday.
The SFI had comfortably won in the Arts faculty in all three panels, chairperson, general secretary, assistant general secretary. The poll for the class representative (CR) in Arts delivered mixed results with the SFI and the Democratic Students’ Association (DSA) — a Left-leaning students’ body — sharing the honours. We The Independent (WTI), which is not affiliated to any political party, won in the Science faculty, while the SFI came second. The WTI won in the main panels scoring five times more votes than the SFI.
The Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad (TMCP) came fourth. In fact, the TMCP performed very poorly in nearly all panels, all faculties. In the Engineering faculty too, it came fourth whereas the Naxal-leaning Democratic Students Federation (DSF) had emerged as the winner. But the surprise challenger to the DSF was the ABVP in Engineering. Though it got six times less votes in the main panel compared to the DSF, the ABVP managed to come second. In fact, the SFI — which is considerably strong — came third there.
