The University of Delhi has rejected Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) plea for recounting of votes in the recently concluded Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) elections. Even though a recount of votes will not take place, the grievance redressal committee has permitted Meenakshi Meena and Avinash Yadav, NSUI candidates for Secretary and Joint Secretary respectively to view EVM-wise data.
NSUI claimed it won three not two posts in the DUSU panel post elections and alleged that the results were tampered due to intervention by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah. NSUI’s National Media In-Charge told Scroll.in., “The CCTVs were not working properly, and many officials from the ABVP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were present in the counting centre.” NSUI asked the Election Commissioner to recount the votes and also submitted an official complaint to the grievance redressal committee. It had also threatened to move to the Delhi High Court soon.
Avinash Yadav, NSUI’s candidate for Joint Secretary of DUSU lost to RSS affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Paridhad’s (ABVP) candidate by 342 votes. NSUI’s candidates for the positions of President and Vice-President, Rocky Tuseed and Kunal Sehrawat bagged the seats by 1590 and 175 votes respectively.
After weeks of campaigning, the Delhi University Students’ Union Elections 2017 were held on Tuesday, 12th September in colleges across the University of Delhi. At the end of the day, the voter turnout was said to be 42.8%, which was a huge improvement from last year’s turnout of 34.3%. The results for the same were announced on the afternoon of 13th September.
Rocky Tusheed and Kunal Sehrawat from the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), affiliated to the Indian National Congress, won the posts of President and Vice President respectively. This was an enormous leap for NSUI, as they emerged victorious over Rajat Choudhary and Paarth Rana from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), affiliated to the Rashtriya Sawayamsevak Sangh (RSS). ABVP has maintained monopoly over these 2 posts for the past 4 years in DUSU. The post of Secretary and Joint Secretary has been won by Mahamedha Nagar and Uma Shankar from ABVP.
However, in a recent turn of events, the counting of votes for the post of Joint Secretary is being taken to the Delhi High Court by NSUI. Neeraj Mishra, the National Communications In charge of NSUI, said, “The average NOTA vote count for the post of Joint Secretary had been declared as 5000, however ABVP claims the NOTA vote count to be 9000. Due to the discrepancies in these numbers, the matter of the final vote count will be moved to the High Court by NSUI”. The final tally of votes were, President: NSUI (16299), ABVP (14709). Vice-president: NSUI (16431), ABVP (16256). Secretary: ABVP (17156), NSUI (14532). The post of Joint Secretary has been won by Uma Shankar from ABVP as of now, however the final decision will be declared by the Delhi High Court.
The Ministry of Human Resource Development had recently issued a direction to nearly 40,000 higher education institutions to tune into Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech, to be delivered on 11 September, in commemoration of the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda’s famous address at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
The National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), which is the student wing of the Indian National Congress, has specifically condemned these actions taken by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to promote and telecast the speech in every Delhi University college just a day before the DUSU elections are scheduled.
In a press release today, the NSUI Media In-Charge, Neeraj Mishra, said, “Forcing this in Delhi University will be a flagrant violation of the moral code on conduct since the elections for the DUSU are scheduled on September 12, day after PM’s address. ABVP, one of the organisations contesting the DUSU elections is closely linked to the ruling party, the BJP.” (sic). Midrash Mathew, Media Department, NSUI, said, “It is well known that the UGC and the government are linked since the UGC works under the government directives. By telecasting the speech of our Prime Minister in all colleges of DU, it will only help further ABVP’s agenda since the speech is on Swami Vivekananda and it will actively reflect and propagate the ideologies followed by ABVP. This will be a clear violation of the moral code of conduct set by the Lyngdoh Committee, and ABVP will greatly benefit from it. Hence, the speech should not be streamed in Delhi University as it is unfair.”
NSUI issued another press release today in which they requested the Chief Election Officer (CEO) of DUSU to extend the campaigning time and election day by four days, while restricting other candidates to campaign during this time. The presidential candidate of NSUI, Rocky Tuseed, received his ballot number yesterday evening after the High Court directed the CEO. The Officer had prohibited Tuseed from campaigning for two days while the other candidates were actively campaigning. Neeraj Mishra pointed out that since the University is closed over the weekend, and the campaigning officially has to stop at 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning, Tuseed will get no time to campaign.
The CEO rejected the request put forth by the NSUI by stating that the office was constrained by the Lyngdoh Committee guidelines which directed the University to conduct the elections within 56 days. On this matter, Midrash Mathew said, “A bigger mandate of the Lyngdoh Committee is to conduct free and fair elections. If the elections are not postponed, our presidential candidate will get no time to go to students and make them aware about his views and campaign. Because of the accusations put on us, we were left in the dark when the ballot number was taken away. However, the High Court’s decision came in our favour. Hence the CEO should take our request into account.”
Rocky Tuseed after being cleared to contest for DUSU elections. Image Credits: The Hindu
DU Beat reached out to multiple official representatives of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), but none were available for comment.
The National Students Union of India(NSUI), the student wing of the Indian National Congress(INC) got a rude shock when it discovered that its presidential candidate for DUSU Elections, Rocky Tuseed was missing from the final list of candidates released by the Cheif Election Office(CEO) office. Rocky Tuseed’s name was missing from the list released by CEO’s office which comprised of six other presidential candidates including Rajat Choudhary of ABVP and Parul Chauhan of AISA.
The cancellation of nomination was on the grounds of “disciplinary actions” based on an incident that happened during Tuseed’s time at Shivaji College.
NSUI called for a press conference this afternoon at Arts faculty to express resentment about the scenario. Ruchi Gupta, National In-charge of NSUI alleges that no certain definition of ‘disciplinary action’ has been defined by the Election Commission of DU. She further adds “ Without a clear definition, there is bound to be arbitrary applications of a standard which are bad in law.” Tuseed has contested and won as president in departmental elections (also under DUSU) last year. Ruchi Gupta told DU beat that “DU election commission can’t apply differential standards in two separate academic years.”
Mr Tuseed showed a copy of his character certificate issued to him by his college to DU beat. The principal of Shivaji college, however, denied that they had issued a good conduct certificate to him, while also refusing to comment on the actual details of the incident.
Mr Tuseed alleges ABVP for pressurizing the authorities for cancellation of his candidature. He informed that a case has been filed in this regard and he will be going on a hunger strike until justice is delivered.
Meanwhile, the party has convinced an independent candidate, Alka of Shaheed Bhagat Singh College (evening), to contest on their behalf.
DUSU Polls are scheduled for September 12.
Are there certain patterns that DUSU elections follow? How much of a role does ones caste, gender and socio-economic background play? With election season round the corner, we try to answer these questions.
Winning the students’ union elections in the University of Delhi is an immense feat. Major national political student parties like Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), National Students Union of India (NSUI), and All India Students Association (AISA) amongst others are the key players in the Delhi University Student’s Union (DUSU) elections. Along with muscle-power and extensive campaigning, a lot of strategy goes into the DUSU elections. Are people from a community, gender, or political party more likely to win this election? We try to answer these questions through an analysis of past election data.
1) The rise of ABVP -The last time NSUI won all four DUSU posts was in 2007, some ten years ago. In the last ten years, ABVP has won the DUSU elections seven times (the criterion being winning three or more seats). Out of these seven times, in 2009 the ABVP won one seat. Howsoever the President (independent) and Joint Secretary (Samajwadi Chattra Sabha) publicly credited ABVP for their victory. Only twice was NSUI able to win majority seats in the panel. In 2012, both ABVP and NSUI won two seats each. In the last ten years, Delhi University has seen six ABVP, one independent (credits ABVP) and three NSUI Presidents. This shift in voting patterns is unconventional since DUSU had a NSUI stronghold for a long time. From 1996 to 2008, NSUI maintained its position as the key player in DUSU politics, winning the majority of seats.
Nupur Sharma was the DUSU President in 2008. She won the Presidential seat for ABVP ending a long NSUI stronghold, surprising many. There has been no female DUSU President after her. Source: @nupursharmabjp on Twitter
2) Fall in the participation of women – Between 2011 and 2017, out of the twenty-four candidates that became a part of the DUSU panel, only five were women. The role of women in the last six years has been limited to the positions of General Secretary and Joint Secretary, with ABVP’s Priyanka Chhawri (Vice President) being the only exception. It would be strange perhaps to find out that women were not always relegated to the role of a token in DUSU politics. In fact between 2001 and 2010 women won twelve seats in DUSU overall with five of them being President and two being Vice President. Where there should have been an improvement in the position of women, there has been a decline. This fall in the number of female candidates winning and the lack of female DUSU Presidents is strange. In fact, while the awareness about gender-equality and feminism is greater than ever. While DUSU President of 2008, Nupur Sharma, believes this is because posters with faces were no more allowed; Ragini Nayak, DUSU President of 2005, believed it is so because the number of days of campaigning has been shortened to four or five days, and this kind of aggressive campaigning is easier for men to accomplish. (Source: Hindustan Times)
L-R: Priyanka Chhawri, Ankit Singh and Amit Tanvar after winning the 2016 DUSU elections. All four post holders in the 2016-17 DUSU union are from either the Jat or Gurjar community. Source: The Indian Express
3) The dominance of the Jat and Gurjar community – From 2011 to 2017, every DUSU President has been from either the Jat or the Gurjar community. The last four DUSU Presidents belonged to the Gujjar community while the two before them from the Gurjar community. In fact not just Presidents, but often the entire panel hails from these two communities. For instance, in 2016-17 all four post holders hailed from the Jat or Gurjar community. This dominance of certain communities in DUSU is recent but it clearly shows how major student parties are not shy of fielding candidates hailing from influential communities who have immense social capital at their disposal, in order to win.
4) Emerging alternatives to ABVP and NSUI – Parties like AISA and the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) have continuously been gaining relevance in DUSU politics. In the 2016 elections, on almost all posts, AISA candidates managed to secure the third highest vote share, thus securing its position as the third party in the DUSU political scene. It managed to secure a total of 30,000 seats. It also managed to secure an increase in its vote share for each post.
Right before elections, a photo uploaded by the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) had started making rounds on the internet. The picture alleged the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) of spending Rs. 22 lakhs out of the assigned 26 lakhs for the Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) budget on tea.
Soon, there was an outrage in the student community regarding the blatant misappropriation of expenses. NSUI officials claimed that Mr. Mohit Garid, the Joint Secretary of DUSU, provided the information as he has got access to all DUSU official records.
But when DU Beat reached out to ABVP, the other side of the story was unfolded. Mr. Amit Tanwar, president of DUSU, explained that the document making rounds is the budget of DUSU and not the expenditure. He further told DU Beat that many other events were conducted which didn’t fall in any of the other categories, hence, were included in miscellaneous sections.
Mr. Saket Bahugana, the national media convenor of ABVP, shared with us the original complete document, which clearly reflects the signature of Mr. Mohit Garid on the document.
Image Credits: DUSU office
Mr. Bahugana adds, “Why didn’t the Joint Secretary object to the budget while it was being proposed?” He also alleged that Mr. Garid had taken more than Rs. 5 lakhs from the DUSU fund but failed to utilise the money towards an event with the money.
As the election season is round the corner, there are a few questions we need to ask ourselves before you cast your precious vote. For the past many years these student unions have been releasing majestic manifestos. Has there been any progress? Has the University witnessed a change?
If you go through the manifestos of different parties, you’ll realise how similar they are in the amenities, provisions and campaigning techniques. The consecutive years have seen no major change in these manifestos; they remain focused on providing a safe environment for women, affordable hostel facilities, proper implementation of the Choice Based Credit System, formation of a North Eastern Cell, encouragement of anti-ragging and anti-discriminatory practices, and so on.
One might argue that change doesn’t happen in a day but the fact that certain parties have backed a seat or two (or more) in DUSU elections year after year and still the agendas they put forth remain the same is a matter of great concern. The students of the University of Delhi need to question their political presence and the allocation of resources that they garner.
Talking of ABVP, since 2014, certain bullet points have maintained their place in the list of agendas even after them coming consecutively to power. They include having a bank account for all the students of the University, hostels, safety from sexual harassment and discrimination, North East progression and preservation of their culture and rights, etc. It is alarming that such issues of grave concern still remain left to be addressed. The same story continues if we look at the manifesto of NSUI or even that of AISA.
Political ideology and inclination is what separates them because the demands and needs of the students are basic and every party knows the importance to assure the basic minimum requirements in their own ways. The problem arises when after capturing the seats, the funds are misused or muscle power becomes the means to address issues, staff and students alike.
One way by which we, being aware citizens of this University, can ensure greater credibility, responsibility and participation from their side is by continuously questioning them through the means of different forums regarding their earlier manifestos and the allocation of funds. The fact that we are the largest democracy of the world gives us an advantage over these parties who live in a constant fear of losing elections if they don’t perform to the best of their abilities. We have to target this weakness of them because this one vote that all of us have is our greatest strength.
The National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) launched its manifesto for the DUSU elections and kickstarted its “Take Back DU” campaign in a press conference on 17th August. The four-page manifesto which was released on the occasion talks about democracy and freedom on campus, ensuring equal opportunities, and making Delhi University more affordable. The motto of NSUI’s campaign for 2017 is “Take Back DU”, implying that the Congress-affiliated students’ wing wants to restore the peace in the campus, opposing the recent violence that occurred in the University.
Speaking on the occasion, Fairoz Khan, the national President of the party said that the campus has now become a place of fear and violence for its students. NSUI aims to change this atmosphere within the campus. He also informed that NSUI aims to conduct an issue-based campaign without the use of money and muscle power in an attempt to bring a gradual shift in DUSU politics. “The manifesto has been made by interacting with all the students of the University. We also aim to encourage exchange programmes between the colleges,” he said.
Ruchi Gupta, the All India Congress Committee (AICC) NSUI in-charge talked about the three aspects of the manifesto. She identified them as follows. “The first being democracy on campus and different aspects of democracy. The second thing we are targeting in our manifesto is equal opportunities and affirmative action. The third thing is to talk about access – physical and financial – to Delhi University.”
The party aims to “Take Back DU” and make sure that there is democratic control over the campus. It also wants to tackle issues such as difference of fees in colleges, the atmosphere of fear on the campus, the ideological conflict amongst parties, and seat cuts in courses all over Delhi University.
So here we are, having survived 2016, with all the swag and luster, at Delhi University. This year shall be remembered in the academic vicinity for various reasons. As for the freshers and rest alike, whether you were basking in the carelessness of the post-war (pun intended) vacation or were getting yourselves squeezed in the queue for hours together in the ruthless Northern summer after overnight brainstorming to dismantle the enigma of the Delhi University cut offs, detrimental things were going on around you.
If you failed to pay heed to these developments, we come up with 5 controversies which made the year.
1. Something which took freshers by surprise was the boycott of the admission process by the faculty. Later, we learnt of the boycott of the evaluation process itself. This was all in response of the University Grants Commission (UGC) gazette notification, which intended to raise the working hours. Since we ended up being taught, the crisis must have been resolved.
2. The Delhi University election sent shock waves throughout September. The guidelines against the usage of paper pamphlets fell to the deaf ears of the young candidates as is the pollution in Diwali to Delhi-ites. Three out of four posts, including that of president, were bagged by ABVP, RSS’s student outfit, amidst cries of foul play by NSUI. The 4th October pictures of Amit Tanwar, the president, posing with guns in the varsity campus deepened the charges of hooliganism and criminalisation of DU politics, reducing our expectations from our leaders which had already been weakened by all the freebies.
3. The ceiling collapse on 30th August at Daulat Ram College was the frightful realisation of long time fears of all the 63 DU colleges. This incident brought into national focus the hollow claims about the infrastructure and raised many questions. Students came out on the streets asking for more washrooms, basic sanitation facilities and better heed to grievances from immediate effect.
4. 2016, to an extent, saw the Pinjra Tod movement, an initiative which grew out of a Facebook page in August, 2015 to champion the causes of women in hostels and PG, yield results. In response to the countless protest marches, curfews have been slackened, leading to the removal of guardian’s permission for leave, among many other feats. But as Sabika Naqvi rightly maintains, there is a long long way to go.
5. On 8th November, DU professor Nandini Sundar was booked on the alleged charges of murder of a tribal man Shamnath Baghel in Sukma district of Chattisgarh. She called the allegations ‘absurd’ and fittingly no new development seems on the plate.Interstingly, this is not her maiden face off with Bastar Inspector General Kalluri. Nandini Sundar had been the whistle-blower in the alleged atrocities at the hands of security forces. Earlier this year, her trip to Bastar under the alias of Richa Keshav had already flaked controversies.
Amidst tight security provided by the Delhi Police, the season of campaigning finally came to an end as voting for the Delhi University Students’ Union concluded on Friday. The results of the elections will be declared on Saturday at noon.
The turnout was reported to be over 44% for morning colleges. The turnout for evening colleges will be confirmed later. Last year, the figure for morning colleges stood at 42.3%. Voting began at 8:30AM and went on till 12:30PM for morning colleges.
#Live: Voting has begun! Do go out and exercise your right and responsibility this year at the #DUSU #election 2015.By Shraman Ghosh for DU Beat
Elections for college unions were also conducted on Friday. The results for the same were announced on the same day.
Major parties like ABVP, NSUI, CYSS and AISA halted campaigning on the 9th. AAP’s CYSS is the new entrant to DU’s politics this year. Last year, ABVP swept all 4 seats of the DUSU.
DUSU is one of the most influential students’ unions of the country; numerous past office-bearers, Arun Jaitley and Ajay Maken to name a few, have gone ahead to hold public offices in Central and State Governments.
