The RSS-backed ABVP has won a central panel seat in the JNU Students’ Union elections for the first time in a decade, upsetting a split-hit Left in its bastion.

Vaibhav Meena, a PhD student of Hindi, won the joint secretary’s post for the ABVP, bagging 1.6 per cent votes more than Naresh Kumar of the CPIML-Liberation’s All India Students Association (Aisa).

The ABVP also claimed the support of the majority of elected councillors.

Aisa’s Nitish Kumar was elected president. Manisha of the Independent Left group’s Democratic Students’ Federation was elected vice-president and Munteha Fatima general secretary. The ABVP candidates emerged as runner-ups in these posts, losing the VP’s post by a whisker.

Meena, a Scheduled Tribe candidate, said: “I am not at all considering this victory as my personal achievement or gain. But it’s a massive and fascinating victory of tribal consciousness and the nationalist ideology that has been suppressed by the Left in the university for years.”

The CPM’s SFI and the CPI’s AISF, previously aligned with Aisa and the DSF, faced an unprecedented rout. The SFI came third for president, the AISF fifth for VP. They had aligned with a faction of the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association and the Progressive Students’ Association — a far-Left group.