JNU is one chapter in ABVP’s growth story from Ladakh to Goa, with BJP’s rise clearing the way

The ABVP’s JNU upswing reflects the rapid growth of the organisation, formed in 1948, in the last decade or so (coinciding with the BJP going from strength to strength in national elections). It is now the biggest student organisation of the country by far.

It was in 1996 that the ABVP last registered a win in JNU, getting three of the four central panel seats. But even then, it won just one councillor seat in the SSS. Again in 2000, when the ABVP won the JNUSU president’s post for the first – and last – time, with Sandeep Mahapatra clinching it by one vote, the student’s outfit got just one councillor seat in the SSS.

Pushkar Mishra — now the director of the Rampur Raza Library and a senior BJP leader in Uttar Pradesh — who was the ABVP’s contender for the JNUSU president’s post in 1999 and lost by four votes, told The Indian Express that the student union poll results reflect the larger changes in society.

“The socio-historical forces of civilisational consciousness have been articulated in the rest of the country. In JNU, the civilisational consciousness was articulated in 1996 in a comprehensive manner. The performance of the ABVP is a leap in that direction. There is disarray in social science discourse the world over, and improvement in the SSS is reflective of a search for a direction,” Mishra, who did his PhD in sociology from JNU, said.

In Delhi University, the other big institution in the Capital, the ABVP has dominated student politics for about a decade, replacing the Congress’s NSUI (National Students’ Union of India). This year, the president and joint secretary are from the NSUI, but two other posts are with the ABVP.

ABVP national organising secretary Ashish Chauhan points to the organisation’s geographical “spread” over the past few years, particularly its expansion in BJP-ruled Assam. “Be it Gauhati University for the last 10 years, or Assam University, Silchar, Dibrugarh University or Cotton University, we have begun to win seats. And we have developed a proper Assamese student leadership there,” Chauhan told The Indian Express.

In Assam University, the ABVP has participated in four student union elections since 2015 – a year after the Modi government came to power. In 2024, it won the posts of president, vice-president, assistant general secretary and cultural secretary.

ABVP national media convenor Harsh Attri cites the example of Ladakh University, where the ABVP took home all the seven posts in both 2022 and 2023. In 2024, it got three.

Attri adds: “In the Central University of Himachal Pradesh at Kangra, the ABVP in 2024 won 19 posts out of 20. In Haryana in 2018, the organisation won in many colleges in Bhiwani, Jind and Indira Gandhi University, Rewari.” In Haryana Central University, 29 of the 34 elected departmental representatives belong to the ABVP, while even in Goa University, the ABVP won all the nine seats the last time, Attri said.

While not many universities in Uttar Pradesh hold student union elections, the ABVP has been doing well in neighbouring Bihar. In Patna University, the ABVP’s Maithily Mrinalini was elected president in 2025, becoming the first woman to head the student union in its history of 108 years.

Since 2012, the ABVP has consistently been winning in the university, including the posts of vice-president, general secretary and treasurer.

Last week, the inauguration of a new ABVP office in Delhi reflected the organisation’s growing heft, with RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat himself attending. Also present were star ABVP alumni from various fields, including Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Dharmendra Pradhan, and multiple state ministers and MPs, apart from many RSS pracharaks and BJP national general secretary Vinod Tawde.

Incidentally, the route from the ABVP to the BJP is not as straightforward as it is from the NSUI to the Congress, and often must make its way through the larger Sangh Parivar. ABVP members could be associated with any of the multiple RSS organisations, such as the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Vidya Bharti, etc., and not all may end up becoming prominent BJP politicians.