Elections are back at HCU

“These are upcoming movies and trailers are already out,” says Sharath, an MSc student at the University of Hyderabad (UOH), looking at a number of banners put up by students' organisations on the campus. He couldn't have explained it better. Well, the elections are back in UoH and it's festive time up here.

The intellectually vibrant campus is all set for students' union elections on October 18. There's no dearth of issues for the polls. Students' organisations affiliated to political parties have been campaigning on everything from gender sensitivity to social and university issues. But the one that takes the cake is of course the Telangana issue.

The Telangana Students' Association (TSA) allied with the Bahujan Students' Front (BSF) is all geared up to take the challenge to the powerful outgoing students' union alliance of the Students Federation of India-Ambedkar Students' Association (SFI-ASA) and the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

Chandraiah, a PhD political science scholar and convenor of the TSA-BSF, wants change. “We are ready to challenge the opportunistic and hegemonic politics in HCU for a genuine cause,” he thunders and claims that TSA has a vote-bank of 1,500-odd students. Last year, the SFI-ASA alliance had swept the elections with an average majority of a thousand votes per post.

Another important factor in this year's election is the rise in the number of women candidates. This year, five women are in the fray as against only one last year. One of the women, Sahiti Reddy, a Master of Performing Arts student, is contesting for the post of the president -- in what many say is unprecedented in the university.

Chief election commissiner of the varsity Suresh Naik, also a student, explained that precautionary measures had been taking to avoid a repeat of the infamous 2009 elections, which were declared void following allegations of massive rigging.

“We have adopted a booklet format for the ballot sheets and also a spiral bound voters' list, which makes it technically impossible for somebody to indulge in malpractice," Naik explained.

In the campus that has students from different sections of the society, social groups as well as regional groups like Tribal Students' Forum (TSF), North-East Students' Forum (NESF), Dalit Students' Union (DSU), Malayali and Bengali community etc have a strong say in the elections.

“Students' organizations normally highlight past issues and spread rumours during campaigning and it would be enough to convince freshers,” said Rahul, an MA student. The organisations also bring out posters countering rumours and arguments of their opponents.

The outgoing and acting President of the students' union Mukesh Kumar was an extremely satisfied man as he said that his was the first union in the history of the university to return money to the administration after deducting the expenditure on the students' welfare activities. “We returned `40,000 and our expenditures was only `15 lakh,” he said. Shinod NK, a PhD scholar, when asked about the performance of the current union, said, “Mukesh was accessible to all and that has made his union successful.”

The UoH students' union 2010-11 was dissolved on October 3 following a University General Body Meeting. The new Election Commission (EC), an independent students' apex body that conducts elections, was elected by the students subsequently. The 42-member EC is headed by Suresh Naik, a PhD Economics scholar, according to whom the total number of voters on the campus is around 4,700.

Filing of nominations for various posts started on October 5 and ended on October 12. Campaigning for the polls which started on Oct 12 will continue till Oct 16. The campaign will finish on Oct 17 in style with the candidates in the fray taking part in a debate a la the US presidential poll at an event called the "Open Dias." The voting will take place on Oct 18 and the results will be out the next day. UoH elections are set on a par with the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) elections by the Lyngdoh Commission, as a major election and the results are talked about even at the Centre in New Delhi. Unfortunately, JNU has not witnessed elections since 2007.