It was ABVP all the way. With a voter turnout of just 46 per cent, the BJP student wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad trounced its rival, the Congress-affiliated National Students Association of India (NSUI) four to one in the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections.
In results announced on Saturday, ABVP candidate Aman Awana, student of MA (Previous) Buddhist Studies was elected president with 17,879 votes. From Badarpur, Awana is married and has a seven-month-old daughter and has been an ABVP activist for four years. Utkarsh Chaudhary, BA (Honours) Sanskrit student in PGDAV College comes from an influential Haryana family and Raju Rawat, studying MA (Previous) Buddhist Studies, Faculty of Arts, were elected vice-president and joint secretary bagging 14,968 and 15,643 votes, respectively. While Awana and Choudhary come from a political background, Rawat’s father is a non-teaching staff in DU.
Unlike last year when NSUI bagged three out of four seats in DUSU polls, this time it won just one. NSUI candidate Karishma Thakur, a first-year political science student of Laxmibai College was elected secretary with 14,662 votes.
For the ABVP it was a repeat of 2011 when it won three seats. The Leftist All India Students Association (AISA) failed to win even a single seat. Manu Kataria, state president, ABVP said, “National issues of woman safety, corruption and price rise have hit students and the result of this year’s DUSU election is an indication of their demand for change.”
The issues of corruption and women’s safety dominated both the campaign and outcome. The December 16 gang rape and police action against protestors, mostly students, affected the outcome. Women’s safety was played up in all manifestos. ABVP prominently advocated safety for girls and better hostel facilities, which has been as issue with students from outside Delhi. NSUI’s main agenda was to improve existing facilities on campus such as student representation in the anti-sexual harassment committee. AISA focused on gender sensitization. All-India President of NSUI Rohit Choudhary said, “We organized programmes including women-safety week and raised concerns over the four-year undergraduate programme and called for a safe campus.” NSUI rigorously conducted pre-election campaign with pamphlets and fliers across the city.
The other issue was the semester system and the four-year undergraduate course. The fact that the NSUI during its campaign did not oppose these controversial issues seems to have turned the tide in ABVP’s favour. “The ABVP and AISA robustly campaigned against these developments, thereby getting students’ support,” said a political science professor from DU. The contentious issues were instrumental in the Left winning the teachers organizational polls early this month. Kataria says that ABVP conducted a survey in the first week of August where almost 80 per cent students voted against the four-year undergraduate programme. “We have been vocal about the opposition to the introduction of the four-year undergraduate programme which increases financial burden on students and given the current economic situation, students have clearly rejected the Congress-backed NSUI,” she said.
ABVP had promised help for students facing problems due to anomalies in Internal Assessment Scheme, improvement in infrastructure, and aid to students who are from outside the city.
Accusations of sops like free chocolates and party invitations notwith-standing, both ABVP and NSUI say their ‘apolitical’ agenda and willingness to bring issues to the fore helped them get votes.
-The Sunday Standard