The United Left Alliance swept the JNU students polls after conclusively defeating the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in the Jawaharlal Nehru Students’ Union (JNUSU) elections. The alliance which comprised of All Indian Students’ Association (AISA), Students’ Federation of India (SFI), Democratic Students’ Deferation (DSF) and All India Students’ Federation (AISF), won the post of president, vice president, general secretary and joint secretary as results got declared on Sunday.
N Sai Balaji won the post of president by a margin of 1000 votes, defeating Lalit Pandey of the ABVP. While Balaji bagged 2161 votes. Sarika Chaudhary of the DSF defeated ABVP candidate Geetasri Boruah by a margin of 1680 votes for the post of vice president. Aejaz Ahmed Rather of the SFI garnered 2423 votes and won the post of general secretary after defeating Ganesh Gurjar of the ABVP by 1300 votes. The post of joint secretary was won by Amutha of AISF who bagged 2047 defeating ABVP’s Venkat Choubey by a margin of 800 votes.
(Courtesy: newsx.com)
With the sweet victory, the left alliance stood vindicated against what has now come to be known as a “high handed authoritarian” administration led by vice chancellor Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar in the past year. Several agitations especially on seat cuts, irregular implementation of reservation policy, mandatory attendance, procedural violations in faculty appointments and the VC’s sudden decision to open engineering and management schools in the campus, for which he requested for a loan of Rs. 515 crore.
Counting of votes for the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students’ union polls was halted on Saturday after an alleged disruption by member of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members. The ABVP members alleged that they were not informed about the process. However, due to the efficient handling of almost a riot like situation by the Election Commission (EC), the counting process could be carried on smoothly. In the past, JNU’s EC has earned a reputation of being able to conduct peaceful elections efficiently.
The voter turn-out in the current election was 67.8%, which is being seen as the highest in the recent years with over 5000 students casting their votes.
Besides the Left alliance and the ABVP, there were candidates of the Congress-affiliated NSUI (National Students’ Union of India) and the BAPSA (Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association), a student group advocating principles of Birsa Munda, Babasaheb Ambedkar and Jotirao Phule.
The Left alliance is likely to gain confidence from its stupendous performance in securing votes in JNU’s science schools, where ABVP has traditionally dominated. Another important sweep is that in the school of life sciences. The school was in news because of the Atul Johari sexual assault case in which women students strongly came out against the professor for harassing several women students in the past. While the left groups raised voice in this case, ABVP remained conspicuously silent.
During the elections, students have accused ABVP of “setting a violent precedent”. Despite getting a clear mandate from students, the left alliance is likely to face hostility from the administration and hence challenges in functioning.
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