The Left won the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) elections as results were declared at 10 pm on Saturday.
The election was watched closely after this year’s sedition row that caught the nation’s attention.
The All India Students Association (AISA) and the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) had joined hands against the Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
The central figure of the February uproar, current JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar and his party, All India Students Federation (AISF), did not contest.
Seen as the launch pad for potential politicians, the elections were a huge affair in the university.
ABVP Still Riding the “Anti-national” Wave
In an interview to The Quint, Kumar explained his party’s step to stay out of the race, a decision much despised by the left -supporters of JNU:
The AISF thought it made no sense to divide the democratic, progressive and secular vote in light of what has happened, so we decided to not contest in these elections. This fight is no longer about which party wins, but it’s about JNU’s identity, which no power can wipe away.
The decision had earlier seemed to have worked in favour of the right-wing ABVP’s candidate Saurabh Sharma. Sharma was one of the people who were caught in the controversy.
Sharma was riding on the “anti-national” wave – even after six months of the incident – in addition to the recent rape case filed by a PhD student from the campus.
Left Cries Foul
The Left, not on good terms with the college administration since the 9 February incident, has alleged that the university authorities helped ABVP in campaigning by providing phone numbers of students.
The ABVP claims that this is a move by them to be eco-friendly and cut down the use of paper in their campaign.
They insist that they acquired the numbers of students by building their own database through registrations for debates and events the party has organised.
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