Till yesterday, they were leaders on the campus, but today they are jostling for space in the yet to be formed 16th Vidhan Sabha in Uttar Pradesh.
In the ongoing Assembly elections, a record number of student leaders from various state and Central universities are in the electoral arena. Some are veterans while others are making their political debut.
In Barabanki’s Ramnagar Assembly seat, two former presidents of the Lucknow University Students Union (LUSU) are contesting against each other.
Arvind Singh Gope is the Samajwadi Party candidate while his senior and rival Ramvir Singh is contesting on a Congress ticket.
Both the former student leaders have refrained from making any direct attacks on each other and the battle has remained “political” so far.
Another former Lucknow University Students Union president in the fray is Ramesh Srivastava from Lucknow east. Pitted against veteran Kalraj Misra of the BJP, he is banking on support of his seniors and juniors from the campus.
Other former LUSU presidents in the fray are Samarpal Singh (BJP) and Shailesh Kumar Shailu (BJP). Former LUSU general secretaries contesting elections include Ravidas Mehrotra and Udai Raj Yadav (both Samajwadi Party).
Two former ministers in the fray, Ashok Vajpayee (Samajwadi Party) and Rakesh Dhar Tripathi (Independent), also have their roots in universities in Lucknow and Allahabad respectively.
Former Allahabad University Students Union president Anugrah Narain Singh is the Congress candidate in Allahabad, while former general secretary from the same university, Vivek Singh, is the Congress candidate in Banda.
Both are sitting Congress MLAs and working for a re-election this time.
Commenting on the trend, Vivek Singh, Congress candidate in Banda, says, “Student unions are like nurseries for politics and it is natural for student leaders to graduate to state level politics. Since politics on the campus is essentially between peers, one learns how to remain an equal between equals — instead of becoming a first between equals — and this helps in politics if one sticks to the principle.”