The JNUSU and DUSU elections were held on the same day – September 14 – and the results have been encouraging for the Left forces.
In JNU, it was an overwhelming mandate for the Left. AISA once again won a majority in the Union, with 3 out of 4 office-bearer posts and 12 councillor posts. The SF-JNU candidate won the President post, while the other three posts of Vice President, General Secretary and Joint Secretary were won by the AISA candidates.
Piyush Raj, AISA’s joint secretary candidate polled 1566 votes and defeated Ruchira Sen who polled 1427 votes by a margin of 139 votes. AISA’s general secretary candidate Shakeel Anjum won by a margin of 980 votes – he polled 1719 votes, while the SFI JNU-AISF candidate on that post polled 739 votes. AISA’s Vice Presidential candidate Minakshi Buragohain won by a margin of 920 votes, polling 1816 votes against the SFI JNU-AISF candidate. On the post of President, SFI-JNU’s Lenin polled 1446 votes and defeated AISA’s Omprasad who polled 1233 votes. In addition, AISA has won the convenorship of the five schools (International Studies; Social Sciences; Language, Literature and Culture Studies; Arts and Aesthetics; and Law and Governance) – and a total of 12 councillors from AISA have been elected.
This mandate is a defeat of the right-wing forces – whose only agenda is to spread communal hatred and to defend neo-liberal policies leading to corruption and corporate loot. Like the mandates of 2007 and 2012 February, the mandate this time is once again a mandate against CPI(M)’s revisionism, its abject surrender to neo-liberalism and its dubious positions on state repression, Operation Green Hunt, AFSPA and SEZs. The SFI-JNU’s victory on the post of President has come in the wake of its endorsement of AISA’s long-standing critique of the CPI(M) on the above questions.
AISA has welcomed the mandate and thanked the student community, and has reiterated its commitment to building united JNUSU struggles to take forward the previous JNUSU’s initiatives for social inclusion, students’ rights and facilities, campus democracy and democratisation of academics.
In DUSU, the NSUI won all seats while ABVP polled second. But a significant section of DU students this year spoke out quite clearly regarding their hopes for a radical Left, democratic student politics, represented by AISA. AISA polled 3rd on 3 DUSU posts and 4th on the post of President, consistently polling above 3000 votes on all 4 posts.
AISA’s Presidential candidate, Nikita Sinha, a student of MSc Statistics in Ramjas College, polled 3000 votes. Kumar Ankit, a student of MA Buddhist Studies, polled 3600 votes on the post of VP. Nishant Kumar, a student of BSc Physical Sciences in Hansraj College, polled 4700 votes on the GS post. And Adiya Bikram Pande, a BA English Honours student of Satyawati College, polled 3700 votes on the Joint Secretary post.
AISA’s significant and consistent improved showing in the DUSU polls comes in the wake of a sustained campaign since last year against corruption and corporate plunder, against privatisation of education, and struggles against sexual harassment, against curtailment in student rights and campus democracy.
