NEW DELHI: After reading some of the answers that the ‘To-be DU Presidents’ gave regarding their own university, one may end up going for ‘NOTA’ while voting for the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections on September 22.
Surprisingly, four presidential candidates from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), National Students Union of India (NSUI), Students Federation of India (SFI) and All India Students Association (AISA) do not know who the ‘Chancellor’ of the Delhi University is or what is the motto of the university.
One of them did not know the full form of the ‘NOTA’ option in the EVMs and half of them didn’t know the full form of CUET and FYUP- ironically the issues that they have been fighting and speaking about for two months.
With the DUSU election a day away, we took a set of 10 questions to the presidential candidates of the main student parties to test their knowledge of Delhi University. The questions included- who is the chancellor of Delhi University, name a few scholarships that DU offers to the students, the motto of the varsity; among other questions.
SFI candidate, Aiyesha Ahmad Khan, a second-year student from Miranda House scored the lowest marks out of 10 as she answered only two questions correctly and one answer was half correct. Meanwhile, ABVP’s Tushar Dedha was not able to tell the full form of CUET and FYUP- the two important elements implemented in the university recently. Tushar scored only 3 out of 10.
AISA’s Arif Siddique also had no answers to seven questions out of 10. He could only tell the full forms of NOTA, CUET/FYUP and the expenditure limit. NSUI’s presidential candidate Hitesh Gulia, who was initially hesitant to answer the questions saying, “I will not answer the general knowledge questions,” scored 3/10.
Students’ groups hold full-fledged campaign
With two days to go for Delhi University elections, students’ groups at the varsity held full-fledged campaigns, with the silence period to begin at 12 pm on September 21 as per the code of conduct. The Congress-affiliated NSUI held campaigns at Vishwavidyalaya Metro Station.