On Thursday morning, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) came armed with more than their standard BMJ (Bharat Mata Ki Jai) slogans to ‘save’ Delhi University (DU). All over DU’s North Campus, banners were put up depicting gory killings. They had taglines like “Communist Violence” and “Martyres (sic) of Kerala” and some stressed the point using graphic images of violence, including beheaded corpses

For the past couple of weeks, DU has been tense. Particularly since the protest march of February 28, which saw regular students along with including Left-affliated student bodies such as the All India Students’ Association (AISA) decry ABVP, the political rivalry has intensified. ABVP took out a rally on March 2. The student wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has maintained that the February 28 march was led by Communists. The banners that were put up on Thursday, on Chhatra Marg, were to warn the youth of the dangers of Communism.

ABVP’s Delhi state secretary Bharat Khatana told Newslaundry, “For past week they (Communists) have been running a campaign on social media calling us goons [after the violence at Ramjas College]. We have exposed their real face.” The expose he’s referring to are the banners with gory images. ABVP claimed that Communist organisations in Kerala have the blood of RSS workers on their hands. Kerala has seen violent clashes between Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) party workers. Recently that RSS’s Ujjain Prachar Pramukh Kundan Chandrawat offered a bounty of one crore rupees to anyone who brought him Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s head. Chandrawat has been kicked out of RSS after his announcement was met with widespread criticism.

“Ye laal rang ki baat karte hain, wo asal mein khoon hai jisse inke haath laal ho gaye hain (the red colour that they talk about is, in fact, the blood of our workers on their hands),” Khatana told Newslaundry. ABVP put up over 100 banners and an additional six to seven huge hoardings in North campus and neighbouring localities. They were taken down within a day, but it was enough time for the banners and hoardings to be noted, photographed and circulated widely.

According to AISA, the reference to Communist violence is not only an attempt to justify Ramjas college violence – allegedly perpetrated by ABVP – but also a call or threat of further violence. The student body filed a complaint with the Maurice Nagar Police station on Thursday. Congress’s students’ organisation National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) had also reached out to DU vice-chancellor and Dean’s office. Both student bodies called these hoardings and banners illegal.

The NSUI claims the banners were removed as a result of their complaint.

Here are a few of the banners, which were less than 100 metres from the  ABVP office and Maurice Nagar Police Station.

While it’s true that a number of RSS workers have been brutally murdered in Kerala by CPI(M) workers, ABVP has been pointing fingers to AISA, which is not the CPI(M)’s student wing. It’s the Students’ Federation of India – which has the least amount of political clout on campus – that is affiliated to CPI(M). AISA is the CPI (Marxist – Leninist) Liberation’s student body, which is not connected to CPI (M). When asked why AISA should be held responsible for the violence in Kerala, Khatana argued that they were communists too. “Also, leaders such as CPI (M)’s Sitaram Yechury came to support their march on February 28. This indicates that they are connected.” He further added that AISA has not condemned the bloodbath in Kerala.

Their tastelessness aside, these banners beg one important question: how can a student body afford to pay for this campaign? Especially since ABVP would have known that they would be taken down swiftly.

A 4 X 5-foot banner costs between Rs 400 to Rs 500 to print in the North campus area. “For a bulk order of 100 banners, we usually charge something between Rs 300 to 400,” said Raman Kapoor, who runs a printing business near Patel Chest. He didn’t print this order but could confirm that printing the hoardings would have cost between Rs 3000 to 4000. By Kapoor’s estimation, ABVP would have needed to cough up at least Rs 21,000 more for hoardings put up at MCD owned sites (assuming the lower end of Rs 3000 per hoarding). This is not including the labour charges for putting them up and rental charges for each of the hoardings.

When we asked ABVP about the costs, we were told that the banners were sponsored by party volunteers and the hoardings were put by the Delhi University Students’ Union, whose sponsors had paid for it.

What purpose the banners served is still unclear. However, what is evident is that, despite AISA being a smaller organisation and having a far smaller vote share in the students’ union elections, ABVP has anointed AISA as its competition.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @amit_bhardwaz