ABVP Takes All 12 Posts at Kerala Sanskrit College — With No Contest

At Government Sanskrit College in Tripunithura, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is set to occupy all 12 positions in the college union — not because it defeated rivals at the ballot box, but because no other student organisation put up candidates.

Nominations closed on September 17 with only ABVP hopefuls in the fray. Neither the Students' Federation of India (SFI) nor the Kerala Students Union (KSU) fielded anyone. The results will be formally declared on September 29, when union elections are held under Mahatma Gandhi University, to which the college is affiliated.

A small campus with a long history

The college was founded on January 14, 1914, by Sri Rama Varma, the erstwhile King of Cochin, to preserve and promote higher Sanskrit learning at a time when traditional education was losing ground to modern schooling. Instruction began in Vyakarana, Nyaya and Vedanta, with Ayurveda and Jyothisha added in 1926. Over the decades it built departments in Jyothisha, Nyaya, Sahitya, Vedanta and Vyakarana, and it maintains a manuscript library whose holdings have drawn scholars from India and abroad.

More than a century on, however, the institution remains tiny. Principal Dr Saritha Maheswaran said it has around 130 students, well below the 200 ceiling set by the university. The specialised nature of its courses and limited seats keep intake small; in some years, requests for additional seats have been approved for that year alone.

From contested to uncontested

SFI had long held sway on the campus. Last year, the union election was contested: ABVP won 10 of the 12 posts, while SFI took two class representative positions. This year, when nominations were invited, only ABVP candidates came forward.

"This time all 12 have gone to ABVP. But the declaration has not happened yet. It will be only on the 29th," Dr Maheswaran said, adding that the administration does not involve itself in students' political activity. She also noted that eligibility rules — including the year of study required for particular posts — can narrow the field at such a small college.

ABVP state secretary Yedhu Krishnan confirmed that no other student organisation filed papers. He said the party expects similar gains in two colleges in Kannur district and described the Tripunithura outcome as a breakthrough on a campus where SFI had been strong.

SFI's counterpoint

SFI state secretary PS Sanjeev said his organisation had not devoted significant attention to the college because of its very small student strength. He conceded that ABVP has limited relevance in Kannur and Kasaragod, but argued it has made few inroads elsewhere in Kerala. He cited the recent Kerala University union elections, where SFI's own tally shows it won 62 of 71 college unions — 29 of 31 in Thiruvananthapuram, 12 of 18 in Kollam, all 18 in Alappuzha and three of four in Pathanamthitta.

Those polls covered a different set of colleges from the Mahatma Gandhi University elections, so the figures do not directly compare with Tripunithura.

The sequence at the college is thus layered: a long SFI presence, a contested election last year that ABVP largely won, and now an uncontested sweep. ABVP frames it as part of a widening campus footprint; SFI contends it is not representative of the state's student politics.