Mumbai, Hyderabad and New Delhi: His voice brimming with confidence, Aniket Ovhal, an MSc Computer Science student from Matunga's Ruia College, says the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) is largely a student body that acts as a stepping-stone for the talented in the city's college campuses. "In the 1990s, the ABVP used to conduct big cultural programmes, where students with 'pratibha' (talent) found a platform to showcase their skills. Now, almost every college in the city has an inter-collegiate cultural competition, and we are joining hands with them to do more," says the 26-year-old secretary of the body's Mumbai Mahanagar unit. Ovhal may be pushing the ABVP as a talent-hunting platform, but, in light of recent events, the ABVP's record comes across as less a talent-hunting organisation, and more a giant that has woken up.

Students of ABVP shout slogans during a protest at Delhi University campus on Saturday. On its website, ABPV says: We are ‘above partisan politics’ but we accept that social activity cannot be non-political in a strict sense. However, critics says, ABVP is today, fucntioning as the students wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. PIC/PTI