Calcutta, Jan. 17: RSS student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) today opened its account in an academic institute in Calcutta, winning 14 of the 16 seats in the jute technology department of Calcutta University's Ballygunge Science College.

The Trinamul Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), however, swept the elections at the college, taking its tally of class representatives to 89 from nine last year. The SFI, which controlled the student body, drew a blank.

The ABVP also won six of the 18 seats in the Calcutta University-affiliated Kidderpore College, one more than the Trinamul student wing.

The Trinamul union won uncontested in the majority of Ballygunge Science College's 112 seats and in 20 of the 26 Calcutta colleges where elections were held today.

Asked how the ABVP won so convincingly in the jute technology department while it failed to put up candidates in the other departments, the outfit's state secretary, Subir Haldar, hinted at the cosmopolitan nature of the wing.

'Many of the students are from outside Calcutta. We concentrated on the jute department as we noticed that its students were in our favour,' he said.

Although Haldar dodged questions on whether the Sangh outfit had enough organisational strength to contest in all colleges in Bengal, BJP sources said the poll results in the jute technology department and Kidderpore College indicated that a section of students supported the ABVP spontaneously.

'The strong anti-Trinamul sentiment among these students is bringing them to the ABVP,' a source said.

The BJP sources said the results showed that the ABVP was 'making its presence felt' on campuses much in the same way the party was inching closer to taking over the principal Opposition's space in Bengal.

The ABVP's performance is significant in the light of the fact that polls will be held to the Calcutta Municipal Corporation and 99 other civic bodies across the state in the next few months.

In districts like Birbhum, where the BJP has made rapid inroads, the ABVP could not file nominations in any college.

Haldar said that in the 26 Calcutta colleges where elections were held, the ABVP managed to contest only in the jute department of Ballygunge Science College and Kidderpore College. 'There was an attempt to prevent us from contesting. That's why the government did not start the online filing of nominations,' he said.

A Trinamul leader conceded that the ABVP's performance was 'noteworthy'.

'Our party is in power. So it was expected that we would do well. But the ABVP's performance is noteworthy. They never had any presence on Calcutta's college campuses,' the leader said.

Education minister and Trinamul secretary-general Partha Chatterjee dismissed the possibility of any threat to the ruling establishment from the ABVP. 'The ABVP won in the jute department at the cost of the SFI. Our position as No. 1 is unchallenged,' he said.

In December, the ABVP won its first college poll in Bengal, snatching the students' union in Purulia's Jhalda College from the TMCP.