In a huge setback to the BJP, the United Left alliance on Sunday swept the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) polls by winning all four top posts.
The BJP’s student wing, the ABVP, failed to win a single seat.
The JNUSU Election Committee announced that N. Sai Balaji, Sarika Chaudhary, Aejaz Ahmad Rather and Amutha of the Left alliance had been elected to the President, Vice President, General Secretary and Joint Secretary respectively, reported IANS.
In this year’s annual union election, a total of 5,170 votes were cast on Friday, marking a 70 per sent turnout, a steep hike from last year’s 58.69 per cent.
The elections were marred by allegations of intimidation allegedly adopted by the ABVP workers. On Saturday, former JNU student leader, Shehla Rashid had alleged that armed members of the ABVP had sneaked into the premises of the premier institution even as the counting continued.
Her tweet had read, “Panic among common students of JNU as Scorpio cars full of ABVP goons from DU, armed with lathis and other weapons, have been allowed by CRPF to enter the campus. Students are at the police station but they’re being harassed even there. ABVP wants to taint the election process.”
The ABVP members had allegedly attacked the counting centre forcing the counting to be suspended.
Reacting to the Sunday’s victory, the JNUSU’s general secretary, Rama Naga, wrote, “Even after taking students for dinner party, to Parliament visit, to meet the Vice President of India and distributing movie tickets to School of Languages freshers (along with by default goondagardi), the ABVP could not manage to win a single councillor post.”
Student leader and former JNU student, Umar Khalid tweeted, “The mandate from JNU is an unambigious rejection of RSS/BJP’s anti-student agenda as well as jumlebaazi, economic loot, corruption & politics of communal hatred. It is a message from the students to the regime before general elections in 2019. The fight is on..”