DUSU elections: AAP to bank on mass contact, not money power

The AAP’s students wing, Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), is all set to contest the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections in a completely different manner.  CYSS has asked interested candidates to fill up expression forms for the selection process of the candidates. 

Unable to match the “money and muscle power” of the two big national parties, the students wing of the AAP, that rules Delhi, has decided to take on the political heavyweights in the high-profile DUSU elections through more mass contact and social media outreach.

Thus far, the NSUI and the ABVP, the students wings of the Congress and the ABVP, used to dominate the students polls in Delhi. But this time, AAP’s students wing, Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), is heavily relying a “person-to-person” campaign — a tried and tested strategy that brought the party to power in Delhi this year. 

The state president of the CYSS, Anupam Yadav, said that the group already had over 750 volunteers who were contacting new students joining DU colleges on a personal basis. “Our aim is to make DUSU polls free from money and muscle power. We will do issue-based politics for student welfare. We have prepared an application form for those new members who would like to contest in the DUSU polls in future. The poll aspirants will be asked to provide personal details like their political and criminal <g data-gr-id="42">background,</g> if any, and their social networking IDs (Twitter, Facebook), apart from basic details,” Yadav said.

The party will go through all the applications to select the most deserving candidates in a free and transparent manner, Yadav added. He added that there are 77 colleges affiliated to Delhi University out of which 44 colleges participated in the DUSU polls. This year, 60,000 new students were admitted to various DU courses, of which 54,000 joined under-graduate courses. Unlike the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), the AAP’s student wing does not have the money and muscle power that the older groups wield. But Yadav insisted that money and muscles were not required. 

“Everyone knows that lakhs of rupees are spent during students’ union election in Delhi University every year. But instead of spending large sums of money, we will abide by the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations which say that every candidate can spend up to Rs 5,000 in student union polls,” Yadav said. 

“To reduce expenses, we will opt for hand-made posters and activity-based <g data-gr-id="35">campaigning</g> like street plays and classroom contact. With over 750 volunteers, we will reach out to every class in all the colleges participating in the polls,” he added.