On Tuesday, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) election committee finally announced the results of the student union polls.
The United Front of left student groups – All India Student Association (AISA), Student Federation of India (SFI), All India Student Federation (AISF) and Democratic Student Federation (DSF) – won all four central panel posts in the elections, which was held on September 6.
SFI’s Aishe Ghosh is the new JNUSU president. She received 2,313 votes, PTI reported, and defeated Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s (ABVP) Manish Jangid who got 1,128 votes. Saket Moon was elected JNUSU vice president and bagged 3,365 votes, defeating ABVP’s Shruti Agnihotri who got 1,335 votes.
Similarly, Satish Chandra Yadav was elected general secretary and Md Danish election joint secretary.
The Delhi high court had put a stay order on the announcement of the JNUSU results following petitions filed by the university’s students – Anshuman Dubey and Amit Kumar Dwivedi – alleging that their nominations for the election of councillor in JNUSU were illegally rejected, the Indian Express reported.
Subsequently, on September 17, the court permitted the university’s election committee to declare the results in accordance with the Lyngdoh Committee recommendations.
According to one of the petitioners, the university’s election commission had reduced the number of councillor seats from 55 to 46. He said that this violated the recommendations of the Lyngdoh Committee that allows each school or department to have representation in the student body.
On the day of the polls, 67.9% voting was recorded – the counting of which will begin later in the evening. The voter turnout in 2019 JNUSU polls is believed to be the highest in the last seven years.
The Left alliance has been winning all four central panel posts since 2016.
Last year, the Left alliance’s presidential candidate – N.Sai Balaji – polled 2,161 votes, defeating ABVP’s Lalit Pandey who had got 982 votes. In the other three top positions, too – vice president, general secretary and joint secretary – the Left had defeated the ABVP by big margins.
This year, after the announcement, the winning student groups took out a victory march on campus.
With PTI inputs
Featured image credit: Twitter