A Young boy is pleading in the court to seek permission to file his nomination for the post of president in the student union election. The court gave him permission of only one hour and directed the police to take this boy to college. Police jeep is moving at its slow. As jeep reached the college gate there are various hurdles in front of the gate. The young boy took another route and jumped over the wall. Inside the college gate his companions are waiting for him with nomination papers. He succeeded to file his nomination in the last 10 minutes and contested the elections from the jail. No, don’t try to guess the name of the movie as this is not a scene of a movie but a real scene from the student union elections of the Government college, Alwar where the nephew of food and supply and consumer affairs minister Hem Singh Bhadana  was contesting elections and the whole of the BJP government’s machinery was there to ensure his victory. We can visualise the rest of the story. This is not a case of Alwar alone but the story of the whole of the state of Rajasthan.

India is one of the largest democracies of the world and also has a large young population. Most of these youth are studying in the colleges and universities. It is very important to develop a sense of a responsible citizen and to inculcate the values of democracy in the youth.  Apart from the other measures and practices of education, student union elections are an important tool in this direction. Our governments are not ready to give students an opportunity to exercise their democratic rights and assess the democratic system through union elections. This trend was visible in the recently concluded student union elections in Rajasthan. Elections were held with the complete use of government machinery to help ABVP to win elections.
These elections were different from the earlier elections as there was a direct attack on SFI comrades which was an extension of attacks on comrades of Sikar during the last all India conference. The BJP government used all sorts of efforts – money, muscle and terror – to influence voters and stop SFI to file nominations. Despite all these efforts, SFI came out with flying colours and won various posts of office bearers in 70 colleges with full panel in 35 colleges. This was the result of various sacrifices of our comrades ranging from physical attacks to false cases and imprisonment.

Sikar was the centre of the battlefield once again. We lost elections in Sikar last year but this time we won elections with huge margins. The state government had its plan to stop SFI. It divided the Kalyan College into three campuses and conducted elections in these campuses separately, just to break the unity of students. All these efforts failed and SFI swept three colleges including the lone girls’ college of the district. This victory is a symbol of the continuous struggle of SFI comrades and will enthuse all progressive people of the state who are in struggle against the BJP government led by Vasundhara Raje.