The Students’ Federation of India and All India Students’ Association are contesting the JNU polls jointly.
Advertisement
At DU, the 17 candidates in the fray are from the ABVP, AISA, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the National Students’ Union of India, which is the Congress’ student wing.
While the political slugfest at DU has over the decades been between Congress-affiliated National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) and RSS’ student wing Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), left-affiliated All India Students Association (AISA) is vying for the central panel posts with a series of campaigns done by the outfit in recent months to thwart alleged attempts of attacks on university campuses across the country.
According to DU authorities, the timings for voting for the students of morning colleges will be from 8.30 AM to 12.30 PM, while the students of evening colleges can cast their votes from 3 PM to 7 PM. A total of 1,23,246 voters are on the list.
While both the universities will go to polls today, the results will be declared on Saturday for DU and on Monday for JNU.
Amit Tanwar is the ABVP presidential candidate this year.
The elections in JNU, which is also known as the cradle of mainstream politics, are keenly watched this time after the February 9 controversy where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised during an event organised in the campus to hail Afzal Guru, that had then JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar at the helm of affairs.
Kumar’s All India Students’ Federation (AISF) may have chose to sit out the JNU students’ union (JNUSU) elections but they are giving outside support to the alliance between All India Students’ Association (AISA) Students Federation of India (SFI). The alliance was formed after Kanhaiya Kumar’s All India Students’ Federation said it would not take part in the elections this year, but the group is supporting the joint effort.
ABVP is the major challenge for NSUI as they have been sweeping all four seats of DSU from NSUI from past two consecutive years and are already aiming for the hat-trick this year. On late Wednesday night, the presidential debate was held in which all presidential candidates laid out their election agenda.
Advertisement
At DU, the 2015 polls were swept by ABVP, which trounced NSUI and AAP’s Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) to bag all the four positions.
