With the laudable win of the Congress affiliated student wing the National Students Union Of India, NSUI of Delhi University sets a ‘major comeback’ after 2012 when it won three out of four seats. Giving a hard hit to its competitor right winger and BJP affiliated Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad, ABVP, Rocky Tusheed was announced DU president along with Kunal Sherawat as Vice President both from NSUI.
However, in hotly contested DU elections BJP backed ABVP could only bag two seats of secretary and Joint-Secretary by Mahamedha received 17,156 votes and Uma Shankar with 16,691 votes respectively. Where Rocky Tuseed has won the President post with 16,299 votes and Kunal Sehrawat for Vice-President with 16,431 votes.
ABVP’s Rajat and Paarth for the posts of President and Vice President won 14,709 votes and 16,256 votes whereas NSUI Secretarial post candidate Minakshi won 14,532 votes and Joint-Secretarial candidate Avinash won 16,349 votes.
An interesting observation noted at DUSU elections was that more students voted for NOTA or None Of The Above than the NSUI that comprises 10% of total voters. A total of 43 per cent voter turnout was recorded in the polls held on Tuesday.
Also on a show held by NDTV, DUSU Secretary Mahamedha blamed the false propaganda that floated among student fraternity regarding confusion of ballot number for the presidential post where earlier Rocky could not make it through the nominations even. The other side NSUI claimed that they won three posts including Joint-Secretary but due to “personal intervention” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah results were tampered.
DUSU, JNUSU elections witnessed a change in the wind where in 2014 youth was the major force for BJP winning and now they are withdrawing from the hooliganism and pseudo-nationalist ideologies which is again not true. The aggressive behavior of ABVP is considered as one of the reasons for its loss. Apart from casteism that perhaps favored NSUI win only five of 22 women’s college participated DUSU elections that makes a total of approx. 80% women voters remain confined.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi met the winning DUSU candidates on Wednesday evening besides many politician and journalists tweeted to congratulate a big win of NSUI, “Congratulations @nsui on an outstanding performance in #DUSUelection2017. A triumph for liberal values on campus. #NSUIwinsDU Proud of you!” tweeted Sashi Tharoor.
“Congratulations to every DU student, you’ve reclaimed your university back. You’ve proved violence and hooliganism will not be tolerated!” tweet by Gurmehar Kaur.
At the end of the day whoever wins the race it must serve for students welfare and after all, it is just a university election.
