The Association of Students for Alternative Policies (ASAP) was set to make its DUSU election debut this year. However, it has shifted its strategy just days before the 2025 DUSU elections, deciding to focus more on grassroots engagement and prioritising student welfare.
At the beginning of this year’s election season, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) launched a new student wing, the Association of Students for Alternative Policies (ASAP). While ASAP was set to make its debut in the 2025 Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections, it has now decided to refrain from participating in this year’s DUSU polls, focusing instead on reinforcing its student support at the college level.
With just a few days left for the DUSU elections, to be held on 18th September, ASAP has decided to skip the polls and shift its attention to campaigning and contesting at the college level. Previously, they had planned to contest all four central panel seats, namely that of President, Vice President, Secretary and Joint-Secretary. So far, ASAP has secured victories at two colleges, one of them being the Indira Gandhi Institute of Physical Education and Sports Sciences (IGIPE), where two candidates were elected unopposed. This decision is indicative of ASAP’s previous remarks, stating their commitment towards concrete student issues and actions in lieu of electoral politics. The party’s agenda has historically been associated with matters of student welfare, including those related to infrastructure, fee hikes, access to more hostel and library facilities for students, as well as free student metro passes, which they have been pitching since the beginning of CYSS. ‘Hala Bol’, ASAP’s first protest on 5 August, marked the beginning of their campaign. Approximately 150 students gathered to demand refinement of the recruitment process of the Staff Selection Post (SSC), where several administrative and technical disruptions compromised the efficient execution of the exam.
Deepak Bansal, who joined CYSS in 2023, told the Indian Express that ASAP is devoted to breaking caste-based disproportions in the four central panel posts. Also steering the party’s campaign this year, Bansal claimed that they will be pushing SC/ST, and candidates from other marginalised communities to contest, and break the ongoing dominance of Jats and Gurjars of other parties.
AAP’s original student wing, the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), was formed in 2014 as an effort to introduce “alternative politics” and to expand its youth outreach. However, CYSS was largely unsuccessful in both Delhi and Punjab University despite having significant financial and political backing from the party itself, leading to their decision to rebrand and re-strategise their plan of action with regard to student politics. ASAP was formed as an endeavour to “free campus politics from money and muscle power.” Former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the party’s national convenor told the Times of India that, “the student wing’s key objective is not just to contest elections, but also to build social and cultural groups in schools and colleges to unite students through ideas and creativity.”
He was also quoted as saying, “We were in power in Delhi for ten years. The politics we did in Delhi is called alternative politics. Giving good education to all is not part of mainstream politics, but it’s part of our alternative politics,” explaining AAP’s ASAP to be a substitute to BJP’s ABVP and Congress’s NSUI.
AAP’s original student wing, the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), was formed in 2014 as an effort to introduce “alternative politics” and to expand its youth outreach. However, CYSS was largely unsuccessful in both Delhi and Punjab University despite having significant financial and political backing from the party itself, leading to their decision to rebrand and re-strategise their plan of action with regard to student politics. ASAP was formed as an endeavour to “free campus politics from money and muscle power.” Former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the party’s national convenor told the Times of India that, “the student wing’s key objective is not just to contest elections, but also to build social and cultural groups in schools and colleges to unite students through ideas and creativity.”
He was also quoted as saying, “We were in power in Delhi for ten years. The politics we did in Delhi is called alternative politics. Giving good education to all is not part of mainstream politics, but it’s part of our alternative politics,” explaining AAP’s ASAP to be a substitute to BJP’s ABVP and Congress’s NSUI.
Read also: AAP’s Revamped Student Wing Gears Up for DUSU Elections
Image source: du_speak on Instagram
Manya Marwah
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