Riding the Anna wave, Akhil Bharati Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) won three of four seats in the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) polls, 2011. Rohit Chahal, ABVP Delhi secretary, said, “We supported Anna, and told voters if they support him, they should support us. We asked people to question NSUI if they supported Anna—it worked in our favour.”
ABVP’s other big issue was opening new colleges under DU. In the last 12 years, no new college has come up. Seats outstripped supply. Admission cut offs peaked at 100 per cent. “We raised on-campus security concerns, and want CCTV cameras and police barricades.” ABVP also demanded student metro passes at concessional rates, similar to an Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) scheme.
A-Listers Win Big in DUSU
The ‘A’ factor continues to work its wonders in DUSU polls. Ajay Chikara of NSUI won the President’s post. ABVP’s A A Vikas Chaudhary and A A Deepak Bansal won the posts of Vice President and Joint Secretary. With a strike rate of 75 per cent, names starting with ‘A’ have had uncanny victory runs.
In 1974, the current Rajya Sabha Opposition leader, BJP’s Arun Jaitley, won as DU president. Since then, ten people with names starting with A have won the post. (Between 1975-1977, DUSU polls were not held.) In 1983, Anil Soni and in 1985 Ajay Maken of NSUI, now the Union Sports Minister, came tops. Ajay Sood in 1988 and Anju Sachdeva in 1989 also became DUSU presidents. The ‘A factor’ continued in DUSU, with Alka Lamba of NSUI winning in 1995. Anil Jha of ABVP in 1997 and Amit Malik of NSUI in 2000 also became DUSU presidents. In 2006 and 2007, Amrita Dhawan and Amrita Bahiri, both NSUI, became presidents.
The effect spills over to the post of Vice President (VP). In the past 20 years, 13 people with names starting with ‘A’ have become VPs.
The Profs Behind the Polls
Chief Election Officer (CEO) Dr Usha Rao and her team worked round the clock for the past month to ensure that the biggest event in DU student’s calendar, went off without a hitch. Soft-spoken Dr Rao would begin work at 7.30 am and spend her day managing poll procedures from her temporary office in North campus. For the first woman CEO for DUSU elections, students participating in the polls were top priority.
Explaining how they kept a hawk’s eye on canvassing, Rao said she insisted on hidden cameras and electronic surveillance everywhere, including her office. She received some complaints and printed campaign material, and promised to investigate them all. Special Observer Dr Satish Kumar said, they came up with new measures to provide security. Manpower from the Delhi police and CRPF were roped in to keep an eye on campus for the duration of the campaign. Appreciating the electoral code of conduct, Dr Kumar said the objective of DUSU is to prepare future leaders.
“Students who are serious about their study make good candidates for DUSU,” said the grey-haired professor. C S Dubey, the 55-year-old Chief Returning Officer is optimistic that the next few years will witness emergence of candidates keen on working for peers through DUSU, rather than those who use DU polls as a stepping stone into national politics. “Students have lost interest in the elections because DUSU has not done anything for anyone over the past decade,” said Dubey while pointing out that the election itself is an education of the country’s democratic procedures. Describing the team’s approach to the elections, Dubey says, “there has been a lot of planning based on our combined experiences. We have tried to prevent malpractices by the candidates by explaining to them that we will follow the established guidelines and we expect them to do the same.”
