The students of Jawaharlal Nehru University [JNU] handed out a morale-boosting victory to the rebels of Students Federation of India [SFI], electing Lenin Kumar as the next student union president, though the other three panel posts went to All-India Students' Association [AISA] that held complete control over the last union.
The 'dissolution' of SFI's JNU unit that took a contradictory stand from its parent party Communist Party of India [Marxist] over the issue of support to Pranab Mukherjee's presidential candidature, helped revive the rebel outfit in the campus, which also elected five of its candidates to councillors posts.
Kumar polled 1,445 votes out of 4,309 votes polled, winning by a margin of over 200 votes against his nearest AISA candidate Om Prasad to take over the JNUSU president's post from AISA's Sucheta De. Minakshi Buragohain, Shakeel Anjum, and Piyush Raj – all from AISA – won the other three panels positions of vice-president, general secretary and secretary respectively.
The election that came just six months after the last union was elected also saw AISA claim 15 of the 29 council seats for different schools and centres of learning.
The SFI-JNU, that was formed by the expelled members of the SFI and fought the election in alliance with Communist Party of India's student wing AISF, also won five councillor seats.
The SFI – the official students' wing of the party – could win only one seat in the councils, while its presidential candidate Kopal Singh finished eighth among 11 candidates.
Interestingly, in the March elections that happened before the unit was dissolved, the SFI had failed to win any seat on the panel, and had only two councillors – one of them was Kumar.
'Of course it was [a boost], given the adverse conditions we fought in. It sends a big political message,' said Roshan Kishore, the expelled former president of SFI, who now leads the charge of SFI-JNU.
Kumar, a PhD student of the School of International Studies, said that while he had quite a few short-term objectives in mind, his long-term vision was to revive the legacy of the students movements in India. 'The students movement in India has been at the forefront of struggles – be it Emergency in the 70s or the communal politics of the 90s – but the movement has dithered in recent times. It has to be revived to give an alternative of principled politics,' he said.
He said it was for taking a 'principled stand' that the unit was dissolved in JNU but the Left student outfits should have a certain amount of autonomy to take their own stands. 'Otherwise they will be like NSUI or ABVP,' he said.
The 'dissolution' of SFI's JNU unit that took a contradictory stand from its parent party Communist Party of India [Marxist] over the issue of support to Pranab Mukherjee's presidential candidature, helped revive the rebel outfit in the campus, which also elected five of its candidates to councillors posts.
Kumar polled 1,445 votes out of 4,309 votes polled, winning by a margin of over 200 votes against his nearest AISA candidate Om Prasad to take over the JNUSU president's post from AISA's Sucheta De. Minakshi Buragohain, Shakeel Anjum, and Piyush Raj – all from AISA – won the other three panels positions of vice-president, general secretary and secretary respectively.
The election that came just six months after the last union was elected also saw AISA claim 15 of the 29 council seats for different schools and centres of learning.
The SFI-JNU, that was formed by the expelled members of the SFI and fought the election in alliance with Communist Party of India's student wing AISF, also won five councillor seats.
The SFI – the official students' wing of the party – could win only one seat in the councils, while its presidential candidate Kopal Singh finished eighth among 11 candidates.
Interestingly, in the March elections that happened before the unit was dissolved, the SFI had failed to win any seat on the panel, and had only two councillors – one of them was Kumar.
'Of course it was [a boost], given the adverse conditions we fought in. It sends a big political message,' said Roshan Kishore, the expelled former president of SFI, who now leads the charge of SFI-JNU.
Kumar, a PhD student of the School of International Studies, said that while he had quite a few short-term objectives in mind, his long-term vision was to revive the legacy of the students movements in India. 'The students movement in India has been at the forefront of struggles – be it Emergency in the 70s or the communal politics of the 90s – but the movement has dithered in recent times. It has to be revived to give an alternative of principled politics,' he said.
He said it was for taking a 'principled stand' that the unit was dissolved in JNU but the Left student outfits should have a certain amount of autonomy to take their own stands. 'Otherwise they will be like NSUI or ABVP,' he said.