With the date of polling just 9 days away, the political arena of Delhi University is catching fire as contesting parties step up their campaign for DUSU elections. Parties including Chatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, National Students’ Union of India and All India Students’ Association are leaving no stone unturned in their pursuit of victory.
The week gone by had the Delhi Police register over twenty FIRs against various student parties for cases related to defacement of public property through promotional posters. Last week, we reported the move of the Chief Election Officer of DUSU elections, DS Rawat, to seek help from the Delhi Police in cracking down on defaulters of civic and election rules.
In another development, the launch of a University-special bus in the South Campus of DU took an ugly turn when CYSS and ABVP took to social media to claim the credit for the same. The bus was covered with posters of CYSS, one of which read, “Welcome freshers.” Saket Bahuguna, State Secretary of ABVP, referred to a meeting DUSU had had with the CM of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, earlier this year to demand similar amenities for DU students. He also went on to ask why action was not being taken by the police for the ‘act of defacing public property’.
The CEO of DUSU elections has also announced the availability of Delhi University Community Radio (DUCR) to candidates in order to promote paperless campaigning. Candidates will be allowed to record five-minute long speech which will be moderated and aired on the radio at 90.4Mhz.
The CEO also announced the doing away of allowing candidates to change their names by prefixing the letter ‘A ‘several times before their names. This practice enabled candidates to get their names enlisted higher on the EVM machines as names are placed in alphabetical order. Last year, AISA had challenged the practice legally.
AISA organised a referendum dubbed as ‘Opinion Dhamaka’ in which 93% respondents reportedly voted against the Choice Based Credit System. Earlier, Students’ Federation of India conducted a similar referendum in which 92% respondents voted against CBCS.
Ishaan Gambhir
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Congress’ student wing – N.S.U.I. musters support against F.Y.U.P. by means of signature campaign at North Campus, D.U.[/caption]
Sunny Kumar, State Secretary for Delhi, AISA in response to the same question, said that “It is high time the focus shifts to students’ issues from muscle-and-money politics. Therefore it’s not just the question of NSUI – every party has to raise students’ issues to survive. NSUI has now realized that the rage against F.Y.U.P. is not something they can tame and hence they oppose it now.” Calling ABVP, a passive opposition, Kumar said that any action against FYUP by the central government cannot imply that the party has done any ‘concrete work in the same direction’.
In their defense, Amrish Ranjan Pandey, NSUI national spokesperson, told IANS that, “It was something new last year, so we neither supported nor protested against the structure, but now after a year, we conducted a survey and have found that it is not good academically and students are not happy with it”.
Nonetheless, the coming together of all the parties is a clear sign that the students and teachers of DU unanimously agree that FYUP is not something they want and should indeed be rolled back.
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