Eight months after the Congress came to power in Rajasthan, its student wing NSUI has been wiped out from the major universities in the student union elections.
The student union election results were declared on Wednesday evening and did not bring good news for the NSUI which failed to win the post of president in any of the 12 universities in the state.
While independents won posts of president in five universities, ABVP won posts of president in six universities. The election in Kota University was countermanded after the NSUI candidates marksheet was found to be fake.
Coming ahead of the urban local bodies and panchayat elections, the results are a jolt to the ruling Congress.
The NSUI was unable to win even in chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s home district, Jodhpur. NSUI had won the last two elections in the Jai Narayan Vyas University in Jodhpur but this time an independent candidate defeated the NSUI candidate.
Similarly NSUI failed to win in universities and colleges in home districts of most ministers.
The biggest disappointment was in Jaipur where NSUI failed to win in Rajasthan University, the largest in the state.
Congress has 13 MLAs and two cabinet ministers from Jaipur constituency but the NSUI faced defeat at the hands of an independent candidate.
{{/usCountry}}Congress has 13 MLAs and two cabinet ministers from Jaipur constituency but the NSUI faced defeat at the hands of an independent candidate.
{{/usCountry}}In Bharatpur, Udaipur, Ajmer and Bikaner too the NSUI candidates were routed.
Two senior ministers, Raghu Sharma and Bhanwar Singh Bhati, had even tweeted in support of the NSUI candidates ahead of the elections but that too did not work in NSUI’s favour seven as the opposition BJP flayed the Congress for violating the electoral code of conduct.
The results have enthused the BJP. BJP spokesperson Laxmikant Bharadwaj said the ABVP’s win was a win for nationalism and a warning for the anti-youth state government.
ABVP national vice president Anand Paliwal said, “The results show students are thinking beyond narrow confines of caste and local issues and putting nationalism first. ABVP has consistently raised core issues and so students have supported it.”
NSUI media in-charge Bhanu Pratap Singh said the organization was taking the results in a positive way. “We have won in around 250 of the 450 government colleges in the state. In universities, our rebel candidates have won and we will try to get them back into our fold.”