Daulat Ram College’s students raised their voice against wrongful cancellation of nomination of candidates, scrapping of the post of General Secretary, and undemocratic election procedure.
On Monday, September 9th, 2019, the students of Daulat Ram College located in North Campus, University of Delhi, organised a sit-in protest and sloganeering rally against the decisions regarding the DRC Student Union (DRCSU) student polls 2019-20 that had been taken by the Student Advisory Board (SAB) of the institution. The students sat in the corridor leading to the Principal’s office for the entire day and shouted slogans of “We Want Justice” across the entire campus. They also chanted their demands in the staff room corridor.
According to the students, the SAB wrongfully cancelled the nominations of the candidates to five posts of the Student Union – Joint Secretary, Vice President, Cultural Secretary, Treasurer and Proctor. Allegedly, the SAB also declared that the post of General Secretary to the Union would be scrapped for this session since no eligible candidate for the post had filled their nomination as per their notification. As a result, candidates were selected, declared ‘unopposed’ by the SAB for the aforementioned five posts, and elections for these posts stood cancelled. The latest notification of the SAB listed the selected candidates for these posts and only called for elections to take place for the post of President, where two candidates were allowed to contest. The protesting students have demanded this unfair notice to be called-off and the candidature of other nominees to be considered as well.
As per Paavni, a third year Economics Honours students of Daulat Ram College, this arbitrary decision of the Board was undemocratic and “…essentially took away the students’ right to elect their representatives.”
Supposedly, when the students approached the Grievance Board through the SAB, they were notified of the reasons of the cancellation of the nominations, which were in accordance with the new rules of the SAB. But according to the students, these rules were imposed in an unjust manner. The SAB had not considered sports attendance for the sports quota students, which had been submitted to the respective teachers of their subjects and on these grounds, the nominations had been cancelled. Moreover, four out of the five unopposed candidates are in favour of fair elections and had written an application to the SAB that they were against the unfair cancellation of the nominations and wanted free and fair elections, yet the Grievance Board did not engage in any conversation with either the candidates or the protestors.
As a result, the student body has decided to take this matter up with the Principal as well as other administrative body, until their demands are fulfilled and a truly fair election allowed.
Feature Image Credits: Bhavya Pandey for DU Beat
Feature Image Caption: Notice issued by the SAB of DRC
Bhavya Pandey
Comments are closed.