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A Rocky Road for Rocky Tuseed’s Presidency

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Rocky Tuseed’s post as DUSU President has been held ineligible in a recent judgement by the Delhi High Court. His candidacy was being questioned for quite some time regarding criminal charges filed against him. Now finally, it seems some concrete rulings are going to be out.

Rocky Tuseed (or Rocky Tuseer according to campaign posters and graffiti) broke a dry spell of five decades by winning the President’s post with a margin of 1590 votes. However, since the very beginning, his records seemed to have grey areas which raised more than a few brows. Tuseed himself trumped several challenges to get elected and hold on to his post.

To begin with, the Delhi University’s Chief Election Officer initially rejected his presidential candidature, following the guidelines of the Lyngdoh committee, citing disciplinary action taken against him during his undergraduate days in Shivaji College.  This was challenged in the High Court where he was backed by political hotshots like P. Chidambaram and Vivek Tankha. As a result, he managed to turn the tables in his favour, and even generated a “sympathy wave” for himself.

An application by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s  (ABVP) Rajat Chaudhary, however, unleashed a new maelstrom, claiming that an FIR was lodged against Tuseed for an attempt to murder, which had caused him to remain in custody. The court took immediate action issuing notices to the DUSU President and Delhi University. Tuseed in his defence asserted that his name was unnecessarily dragged as he was politically active. Tuseed and the NSUI claim the matter has ended and it is unnecessarily being dragged now. Now finally when Tuseed has completed more than half of his first tenure as DUSU President, a 37-page final verdict by the Delhi High Court has become a barricade on the NSUI’s road to next DUSU election.

The ruling pointedly states, ““The issue raised in the petition goes to the root (of) whether the petitioner (Tuseed) could at all stand for election to the post of president. The answer to which is no.” As reported by the Indian Express, Tuseed’s counsel said they will appeal against the order before a larger bench.

ABVP members have seen this ruling as a major win as this judgement echoes their allegations against Rocky Tuseed aka “a leader who has hardly contributed to anything in the University”, as one of the ABVP media heads remarked.

With his nomination canceled, Rocky Tuseed would have to step down and resign, which might be a fatal blow NSUI’s reputation. The tarnished image of an NSUI leader so close to the 2018 elections might pave the way for ABVP’s victory

Feature Image Credits: DU Beat

Bhavika Behal

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Shaurya Singh Thapa

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Journalism has been called the “first rough draft of history”. D.U.B may be termed as the first rough draft of DU history. Freedom to Express.

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