In a show of remarkable mutual synchronisation, the BJP’s youth wing BJYM and the RSS’ students’ wing ABVP stole the limelight in the ongoing Jadavpur University slugfest initiated by the students’ wings of the Left and TMC.
The ongoing agitation started when the SFI and ultra–left Naxal outfits tried to disrupt a program of the TMC government’s Education Minister Bratya Basu inside the Jadavpur University campus. Professors were heckled, and a student nearly came under the wheels of the minister’s car while he was struggling to escape the heckling. The minister and several professors were injured in the clash.
As a result, TMC Ministers, MPs, and Councillors threatened to barge into the Jadavpur University campus. But the Left and ultra-Left student organisations responded with a students’ strike in protest on Monday despite the ongoing 10+2 Board exams in the state. However, ordinary students didn’t respond, and all schools and colleges operated with full strength as usual, despite attempts by the Left to disrupt.
The TMC also didn’t go ahead with the planned protests and restricted themselves to mere press bytes. However, in a surprise move, BJYM and ABVP members appeared at the university to protest against the left groups. As the Board exam hours were over and the students reached home on Monday, the BJP’s Yuva Morcha activists started assembling on the other side of a bridge connecting the South Kolkata with Jadavpur.
Led by their state president Dr Indranil Khan, a former ABVP leader, a massive rally started heading towards the Jadavpur University. While Kolkata Police intersected them a hundred metres away from the University gate and got into a verbal altercation with the leadership, another group of students belonging to ABVP and BJYM reached Gate No 4 of Jadavpur University. They removed all the red flags and hoisted the saffron flag atop the University Gate.
Around 100 members of ABVP and BJYM barged into the campus, raising slogans against SFI and other left groups, and tore down the posters supporting the strike called by the leftists. Some SFI and AIDSO members appeared and led to a small scuffle, but the leftist group retreated before the clash escalated.
The police also arrived and prevented any further clashes between the two sides. The ABVP-BJYM group shouted slogans saying they will ‘liberate’ the JU campus from the ultra-left radicals and will ensure restoration of normal academic functioning of the university.
“We will not allow SFI to continue its hegemony in JU through intimidation. Our members are also students. They have the right to participate in the democratic movement,” an ABVP leader said.
Notably, despite having the police and administration to their side since the last 14 years, the TMCP has still been unable to hoist their flag at the Jadavpur University. Much of this has been attributed to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s reluctance to tackle the ultra-Leftists due to her political compulsions, despite multiple incidents of anti-national slogans and activities over the last decade.
Many of the Left and ultra-Left student leaders, who fight to keep TMC away from Jadavpur, actually campaigned for Mamata Banerjee in 2021 Assembly elections and are expected to campaign for her again in the upcoming assembly elections in 2026.
However, now that Left student groups have started attacking the TMC, the BJYM and ABVP have joined hands to fight off both the Left and TMC and establish their credibility amongst the young minds.
