Following Defeat in AUSU Elections, ABVP Torches Vehicles, Hostel Rooms

After experiencing a major jolt in the Allahabad University Students' Union elections, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) allegedly set ablaze more than a dozen vehicles. A number of hostel rooms including those of newly elected President Uday Prakash Yadav and former President Avnish Yadav in the Holland Hall hostel were also burnt down, with furniture, documents, and clothes gutted in fire.

The violence started spreading in the varsity at around 1 am, soon after the results of the polling held earlier on Friday were announced. The disappointed ABVP supporters reportedly started torching vehicles, and set a hostel building on fire. Crude bombs were also hurled, according to witnesses.

In spite of the violence, the newly elected office bearers of the Allahabad University Students’ Union were sworn in on Saturday amid police presence, officials said.

Uday Prakash Yadav of the Samajwadi Chatra Sabha (SCS) defeated his ABVP rival Atendra Singh by 774 votes. Akhilesh Yadav of the National Students Union of India (NSUI) bagged the vice president's seat by securing 2,157 votes.

ABVP, the student wing of the RSS, despite its high decibel campaign, managed to win only one post. Its candidate Shivam Singh secured 2,823 votes to be elected as general secretary, while the joint secretary post went to Satyam Singh aka Sunny of the SCS. The cultural secretary post was bagged by NSUI's Aditya Singh, who got 1,832 votes.

Public Relations Officer (PRO) to SSP Allahabad, Prince Dixit, told IANS that the situation was gradually returning to normalcy.

Speaking with Newsclick, newly elected president Uday Prakash Yadav said, "ABVP’s candidate for president, Atendra Pratap Singh, along with more than seven other ABVP members entered the Holland Hall hostel, and started a brawl when they found out that they have been defeated by a wide margin. This is RSS’s agenda and they are executing it inside the university. It was all pre-planned. My room was set on fire.”

A video of former president of the students’ union Avnish Yadav has gone viral on social media, in which, he is seen claiming that he lost everything including all his documents and clothes.

Avnish told Newsclick that ABVP could not bear their defeat “After announcement of the results, almost 50 people from the ABVP led by Atendra Pratap Singh, Neeraj Pratap Singh, Vikas Chaubey, Varun Singh started passing casteist comments and poured petrol in rooms and set fire. If no action is taken in the next 24 hours, we will start a mass movement,” he said.