Report
Updates : AISA Victories in Karbi Anglong and Garhwal

Karbi Students’ Association (KSA), an affiliate of AISA won the post of Vice President and General Secretary of Diphu Government College (DGC) Students’ Union. It is an outcome of the consistent student movement led by KSA-AISA. In Karbi Anglong Students’ Union elections were usually determined by different types of power tactics with arms and money power represented by NSUI and UPDS outfits. This time too the DGC election was declared to be held without photo identity card, so that usual strong arm tactics could be repeated. KSA’s strong opposition and movement against this compelled the authorities to defer the election, which was finally held on 9 October. Apart from fighting against privatization and commercialization of education and malpractices of anti-student outfits, KSA has been leading a student movement on a 10-point demand.

KSA candidate Thomson Rongpi (621 votes) won General Secretary defeating his nearest rival, an independent candidate backed by NCP leaders. NSUI came 3rd. VP candidate Lunce Timung of KSA won (864 votes) defeating the candidate of the KSA outfit (affiliated to the renegade ASDC) backed by the PAPA (Peoples’ Alliance for Peace Agreement, an open organization of cease-fire UPDS), who secured 720 votes, and NSUI was again 3rd (523).

The AISA candidate Verghese Bamola won the post of University Representative in HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar, Uttarakhand. The election was held on 23 October and it was won by AISA by a huge margin. Whereas Verghese Bamola secured 1349 votes, his nearest rival got 686 votes. The post of University Representative has become hotly contested by all student outfits recently as according to the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations election for the post of President and Secretary and VP, Jt. Sec, etc. can be contested only once. However, a student can contest twice for the post of UR and therefore this post gained political importance. The runner up has a NSUI background while the ABVP candidate and outgoing Union Secretary was pushed to the third spot. This victory of AISA is a result of AISA’s leadership role provided to the student community when they are witnessing a series of assaults on the Democratic traditions of University in various forms by the new VC.

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