In A First, ABVP Fields Muslim Woman Candidate In Hyderabad University Elections

New Delhi: In a first, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has fielded a Muslim woman candidate for the Hyderabad University (UoH) student union elections on November 9. Sheikh Ayesha will compete against Mohammad Atique Ahmed of the SFI-ASA-TSF alliance for the president’s post. This is the first contest between two minority candidates for the top post in the central university. According to a report by the Times of India, Sheikh Ayesha from Visakhapatnam is doing her PhD in chemistry. Ahmed is also a PhD student and a resident of Hyderabad. The outgoing president, Prajwal Gaikwad, was from the alliance led by the Ambedkar Student Association (ASA), which included SFI and TSF as other partners. SFI is the student wing of the CPI(M) - Students Federation of India, and TSF is the Tribal Students Federation.

The report said that 24-year-old Ayesha said that the organisation has always been ‘minority supportive’. She has been with the ABVP since 2019. Ayesha rejects the claim Ayesha strongly opposed the claims of her opponents that the ABVP chose her only to send a message that the organisation is not anti-minority. Ayesha said, ‘Whatever it is, ABVP is minority supportive and India supportive. They support all those minorities who support the nation and think about it first. I have been a part of it since I was doing my MSc at the Central Tribal University in AP. I was then a state executive member, which shows that they support Muslim women in leadership roles.’

What will she do if she wins the election? Ayesha said that if elected, her main focus will be to ensure that the National Education Policy 2020 is implemented in letter and spirit at the Hyderabad University. She also intends to provide a facility for establishing a ‘social harmony’ (social harmony) academic centre on the campus. The alliance led by SFI rejects Ayesha’s argument. They said emphatically that Ayesha’s selection was nothing but ‘politics of representation’. Atique argued, ‘ABVP always does this.’