Students' union polls held peacefully at JU

Kolkata: Jadavpur University students' union polls were conducted peacefully on Wednesday.

"No police officers were deployed for the Jadavpur University student elections. As the students expressed that the security staff is enough for it," said Suranjan Das, Vice-Chancellor of Jadavpur University.

He also appealed to all the stakeholders of the institute to "remain calm and maintain peace" during the students' union polls.

Without any reports of violence, elections were held in Arts, Science, as well as in the Engineering faculty. This is for the first time when Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has fielded candidates in Arts and Engineering stream.

ABVP has fielded candidates in all four seats in the Arts department and all five seats in the Engineering department. It has, however, not fielded any candidates for the four seats at the Science department.

The campus wore a different look with banners and posters of the different student bodies highlighting their respective agendas and taking a dig at one another on various contemporary issues that range from Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC).

There were elections for five posts in engineering- chairperson, general secretary and three assistant general secretaries (day, evening and Salt Lake campus). The elections started at 10 am and ended at 7 pm.

"There are around 7,000 students who were expected to cast their votes. Around 1,700 students were expected to vote in the Science stream and there were voting for four posts in both Arts and Science faculty. It is difficult to state the exact turnout right now," said Soupayan Ghosh, coordinator of TMCP Jadavpur University unit at 8.15 pm.

"Jadavpur University has a tradition of peaceful elections. There were reports of violence during the election today, after three years. In 2017, the SFI won the Arts department seats and independent students groups got the Science and Engineering department seats," said SFI leader Debraj Debnath.

"The counting will start at 10 am on February 20, 2020. Once the counting is done,

the results will be declared immediately," said Aishwarya Dev Goswami, a member of DSF.