University of Hyderabad rerun in students' union polls at EFLU

HYDERABAD: The student union elections2017 at the city's English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), on Wednesday, played out much on the lines of the recently held polls at the University of Hyderabad (UoH), with groups cutting across political and caste affiliations coming together to fight under one united banner: Students for Social Justice (SSJ).

Muslim, Dalit and Adivasi student groups joined hands and demanded justice for Rohith Vemula, Mudassir Kamaran (an EFLU student who committed suicide in 2013) and Najeeb Ahmed. The Alliance for Social Justice that won the UoH elections, fought the election on the same agenda.

However while the election results, at the time of go ing to press, were still awaited, preliminary rounds of counting (11 out of 12) indicated that independent candidates were way ahead of SSJ candidates in all the posts. While SSJ did not field any candidate for the president's post, it nominated Akarshika Vaidyanathan for the vice-president's post, Naseeb Ali AK for the general secretary's post, Amrutha Unni for the cultural secretary's post and Gokul S for joint secretary post. There were another eight independent candidates who fought for various posts.

According to varsity officials, polling took place between 9 am and 4 pm and witnessed a turnout of roughly 75 %Earlier in the day, SSJ members had issued a statement on its Facebook page which read: "For the past few years, the EFLU campus has seen an unprece dented attack on students' rights including a severe crackdown on students' organisations and leaders... This platform along with being a platform for discussions of socio-historical and political relevance, is also aimed at creating a platform for students from Dalit, Bahujan, Tribal and Muslim backgrounds."

Explaining its reason behind coming together under one banner, members of Students Islamic Organisation (EFLU), through a separate statement, said: "We are sure that this would be the ideal platform to fight for rights of students and the force to struggle for all those marginalised voices. As always, we wish to continue our healthy engagement with all the voices which would fetch or at least push for inclusive academic atmosphere."