The observers were in for a surprise on Sunday morning as the CPI’s student wing All India Students’ Federation won the presidential post in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union elections defeating the pre-poll favourite All India Students Association candidate by a wafer-thin margin.
AISF candidate Kanhaiya Kumar won the race for the union president’s post securing a total of 1,029 votes defeating AISA’s Vijay Kumar, who polled 962 votes and lost the top post by a margin of 67.
All India Students Association (AISA), which is affiliated to CPI(ML)-Liberation, bagged two seats in the polls. Shehla Rashid Shora and Rama Naga were elected as vice-president and general secretary respectively. But it was the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s comeback in the Left-dominated university polls that came as the biggest surprise for many. ABVP’s Saurabh Kumar Sharma won the post of joint secretary.
The ABVP returned on the university’s central panel after a decade-and-half as BJP leader Sandeep Mahapatra had last won the president’s post on Parishad’s ticket way back in 2001. The student organisation backed by the BJP hasn’t managed a single seat since then. Thirty-one councillors belonging to several schools in JNU were also elected. As the results trickled in, students gathered outside the School of International Studies (SIS) and amid unfurling of red and saffron flags, the new panel was declared elected at a ceremony. In the polls held on September 11, more than 53 per cent students had exercised their franchise.
A total of 22 candidates tested their electoral fortunes for the Central Panel and 83 were in the fray for the post of councillors from various schools.
While seven candidates from major students’ organisations were in the fray for the coveted presidential post in the JNUSU, four candidates vied for the posts of vice-president, six and five nominees for general secretary and joint secretary respectively contested the polls. Safety on campus and better hostel facilities were among the key issues raised by the candidates of various students’ organisations.