Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU)
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Contents |
Campaigning issues
Litter: posters, ugly campaign graffiti
Manash Gohain, September 4, 2017: The Times of India
During the times of election, every available space on the campus is taken up by posters and ugly campaign graffiti. Both the JM Lyngdoh Commission on student politics, in 2006, and the National Green Tribunal, since 2015, have urged the university to opt for paperless electioneering.But 10 days before polling day , one easily sees that the DUSU poll is not only among the biggest in student union balloting, but also among the ugliest.
The problem is that despite the restrictions placed by the Lyngdoh panel and NGT, neither the election committee nor the university administration goes beyond the “ritualistic“ threat of action against violators. This is starkly clear from the pictures TOIhas pulled out from its archives that show the huge volume of paper -printed posters, pamphlets, mailers -used in campaigning from 2011 to 2016, not only on the campus but across the city .
And while the DUSU election panel gave the contending parties a 36-hour ultimatum on August 30 to clean the walls defaced in the campaign, printed paper continues to blight the walls around the university .
There is a backlash of sorts, with students, particularly from Ram Lal Anand and Kirori Mal colleges, declaring they would not to vote for any student organisation that littered their campuses. At Miranda House, too, students chanted, “No paper wastage, no pizzas, no Lakme kajal. If the roads are mucked up by your posters, we will not vote for you.“
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, while assuring a check on paper usage, however, maintained that paperless canvassing was not possible.Saket Bahuguna, national media coordinator, ABVP , said: “We had suggested creating a wall of democracy where posters could be legally pasted, but this did not happen. We have to approach 1.4 lakh students and have an impractical limit of Rs 5,000 as electoral expense per candidate. Under these conditions, posters and pamphlets are the only option.“
Advising the election committee to call an all-party meeting on the matter, given that the Congress-affiliated National Students' Union of India and other student organisations were also against the massive wastage of paper, Bahuguna added, “In future, there has to be some form of digital intervention.“
NSUI itself blames ABVP for plastering the city with posters for its candidates and pleads that since people vote for names that have recall and recognition, there is little the others can do differently . Ruchi Gupta, national spokesperson, NSUI, claimed, “We haven't carried out postering in institutions because we have a very active social media team.“
Gupta talked of a level-playing field for all contestants so as not to handicap some, alleging that ABVP candidates put up posters long before the election schedule was notified. “The rules of the game has to be equally applied and the DU administration should have come down heavily on ABVP .“
2017: ‘76 sites faced irreparable damage during polls’
April 28, 2018: The Times of India
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) told the high court that 76 of its sites suffered irretrievable damage due to defacement by students during Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections.
In a report filed in court DMRC estimated that it will take six months and Rs 17 lakh to restore the defaced properties, and urged the court to get the student leaders pay for their offence of defacing public property.
A bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said all students must coordinate with the concerned authorities to propose designs with a view to beautify the properties while restoring their aesthetic value. The bench also indicated that it may later impose fines on the students involved in defacement, if required.
Appearing for DMRC, advocate Pushkar Sood submitted the report which noted that defaced properties include walls of metro stations, metro pillars and other structures, which had finishing of stone cladding, grit wash, paint and texture paints. “It has been found that the only way to remove the defacement would be by way of redoing the requisite finishing,” the report said.
Meanwhile, the bench also issued bailable warrants against more than 15 student candidates who failed to appear in court despite prior notice. The court directed SHO Maurice Nagar to serve warrants on the students who had contested the DUSU elections and have failed to appear in court despite repeated notices being served on them. HC’s directions came while hearing a PIL on defacement of public properties filed by advocate Prashant Manchanda.
In penance, DU pupils to restore Metro scarred stations
Abhinav Garg, May 13, 2018: The Times of India
The Metro will throw open 11 of its stations to Delhi University students for beautification and renovation after they were defaced by graffiti during university student elections.
The decision follows an unusual meeting hosted by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on its premises on Friday. In attendance were the president and vice-president of Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) and other student leaders — all of them facing heat from the high court for defacing public property — teachers, lawyers and Metro officials.
The court, acting on a PIL filed by advocate Prashant Manchanda, is also monitoring steps taken by civic agencies and DMRC to prosecute the offenders and renovate premises/properties damaged during the polls.
“We don’t need a paint job, … rather, we encourage you to rope in budding student artists to participate and contribute in this public service,” a DMRC official told DUSU president Rocky Tuseed.
DMRC identifies stations that require beautification
Apart from Vishwavidyalaya station, which is one of the worst hit from graffiti, DMRC has identified R K Ashram, Rajouri Garden, Kuhat Enclave, Shiva-ji Park and Pitampura among other stations that require beautification on a large scale. Also in the list are other stations like Civil Lines and Vidhan Sabha.
In its last order, a bench of acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar had directed students and candidates to work with DMRC to restore its defaced properties across the city after being informed that 76 locations were found to be permanently defaced and restoring them would cost over Rs 16 lakh and take six months time.
In the meeting, apprehension of escalating costs hung heavy on the student leaders, even as DMRC officials tried to allay these, underlining that the more students that pitch in, the lesser would be the burden on the candidates.
“Where ever there is physical damage to pillars or other properties, the plan has to be different. But where it is only disfigurement, it can be beautified through paintings and murals by students,” a senior official said, advising students to first meet volunteers and prepare a plan on renovation.
DMRC standing counsel Pushkar Sood suggested that renovation should also carry a message such acts of vandalism won’t be
repeated by students. “Perhaps one line can go below the murals like a pledge that defacement won’t happen again,” Sood indicated.
Tuseed’s lawyer Aman Panwar agreed, and advised his client to start renovation work from first week of June, once DU examinations get over.
Though HC is nudging the student leaders to undo some of the damage, it is expected to take a hard line against those candidates who have been avoiding its summons to the PIL hearing. It has already issued bailable warrants against more than 15 candidates who contested the 2017 DUSU polls, for failing to appear before it despite being served notice in connection with the PIL against defacement of public property.
HC had earlier demanded an action plan from Tuseed, Vice President Kunal Sehrawat and ABVP candidate Rajat Choudhary. "Give us an action plan. Have a painting competition and let Delhi government use those paintings in restoring the defaced properties," it had said, while directing all the students to coordinate with authorities to propose relevant designs with a view to beautify the property restoring its aesthetic value.
The bench had said it cannot “tolerate” public property being "blatantly" defaced and stressed that in order to avert future destruction of public properties a public awareness campaign must be initiated by the Centre and Delhi government.
2018: Rocky Tuseed ineligible: HC
July 21, 2018: The Times of India
The Delhi high court annulled NSUI candidate Rocky Tuseed’s election as Delhi University Students’ Union president, holding him ineligible for the post.
In the process, Justice V K Rao upheld DU’s chief election officer’s decision of rejecting Tuseed’s nomination last year due to a pending disciplinary case against him. Last year, in an interim order, HC had allowed Tuseed, whose nomination for presidential post was rejected, to contest DUSU elections but made it clear that his election will be subject to the final outcome of the writ petition filed by him challenging DU’s decision against him.
Election results
2007-17
See graphic:
Voting percentage and winners, Delhi University Students' Union, 2007-17
2012-14
See graphic, '2012-14, Votes polled and victorious...'
2012-16: voting percentage and winners
From The Times of India, September 7, 2017
See graphic, 'DUSU elections, 2012-16- voting percentage and winners '
2014,15, 16: trends
See graphic, '2015: DUSU election results...'
The Times of India, September 11, 2016
Manash Gohain
Saffron tide in DU, but red fort intact in JNU
NSUI dented ABVP's victory record in the Delhi University Students' Union polls, making a comeback after two years and winning one of the four central seats. Candidates of BJP-affiliated ABVP , which had recorded back-to-back clean sweeps in 2014 and 2015, won the posts of president, vicepresident and secretary , but yielded the joint secretary's post to the students' wing of the Congress.
Suitably enough, unlike on the previous occasions or even when it had won just the president's post in 2008, ABVP this time celebrated its triumph in a subdued manner. The gulaal and crackers were missing and the victory march at the Vivekananda Statue at the Arts Faculty was not as boisterous as before.
ABVP not only failed to sustain the momentum of 2014 and 2015, but even its winning margins and the vote share dipped. Amit Tanwar won the post of DUSU president by a margin of 4,664 votes. In 2015, ABVP had recorded a vote share of 35.9% which slid to 34.5% this year. While Tanwar's margin was the biggest for the outfit, its lowest had been a similar 4,610 last year.
NSUI, whose Mohit Garid is the new joint secretary , claimed that the “massive increase“ in the vote share for his organisation spelt the end of ABVP in DU. “We are now confident of winning all four posts in 2017,“ said Garid. However, there was no such vote swing in its favour, and it recorded a 24.7% vote share, almost unchanged from 24.8% in 2015.
While Tanwar said that the vote “is a comment against the anti-national activities across the country“, an allusion to the February 9 incident in JNU, the leftist student organisation, AISA, actually improved its vote count on every ballot. “Taking its jingoistic rhe toric to a high with its `9 ka badla 9 ko lenge' slogan, ABVP boasted it would wipe out AISA from DU and defeat it in the JNU students' union elections, but both the claims have fallen flat,“ said Aman Nawaz, secretary , AISA, DU unit.
Some students said that the dip in ABVP's vote share was due to it deviating from campus issues and bringing the “anti-national“ issue to the election table. But Ankit Singh Sangwan, the new DUSU secretary , was undeterred and said at the victory march: “Nationalism has been our main issue throughout the elections and we will work at instilling nationalism in the students.“
Meanwhile, the only female candidate to win the polls, Priyanka, who as ABVP candidate won the post of DUSU vice-president, opined that the low turnout on polling day had helped NSUI. “The turnout was poor because several firstyear and second-year students weren't issued ID cards in time,“ she alleged. “Also several colleges didn't hold elections, so fewer students turned up to vote. Otherwise we would have swept the polls again.“
However, putting behind the politicking, she said, “We will now work closely with all students, especially the girl students. We will set up special cells for them and also launch a safety app for them.“
2016 elections: ABVP wins 3, NSUI 1
The Times of India, Sep 10, 2016
Manash Pratim Gohain
DUSU poll: ABVP wins 3 seats, NSUI 1
BJP's student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) bagged three of the four seats in the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections.
ABVP won the post of president, vice president and secretary. The post of joint secretary went to Congress's National Students Union of India (NSUI).
Amit Tanwar was elected president of DUSU while Priyanka Chabri won vice president's post. Ankit Sangwan and Mohit Sangwan have been elected as secretary and joint secretary respectively.
Delhi University introduced NOTA in 2016-17 and a large number of voters preferred it.
Only 36.2% of students cast their ballot+ in DUSU polls in 2016-17. The turnout was the lowest since 2011 when it was 36.5%.
On Friday, the morning turnout was approximately 33%, significantly lower than last year's overall turnout of 43.3%. In fact, voter turnout in 2013-16 has hovered around 43%. In 2010, only 36% of students cast their vote.
Voters and students' outfits blamed the DU administration for the poor turnout.
One reason for the poor turnout was because four colleges — Ramjas, Law Faculty, Ramanujan and Bhaskaracharya College of Applied Science — did not conduct their internal students' union polls along with the DUSU elections. The admission chaos and delay in declaration of results were other reasons attributed for the low turnout.
2017: NSUI bags president, VP after 2012
NSUI predicts beginning of end for saffron, Sep 14 2017: The Times of India
Jolt To ABVP, Loses Prez Seat After 4 Years In A Game Of One-Upmanship, ABVP Puts Up Brave Front, Says Its Core Votes Are Intact
In a major upset in the Delhi University Students' Union election, the Congress-backed National Students' Union of India on Wednesday wrested the top two posts from the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, whose vote share for the president's post dipped significantly from 34.5% last year to 26.8%.
NSUI nominees won the posts of president and vice president, the first time since 2012 that the group has bagged more than one DUSU post. NSUI's Rocky Tuseed, who had got the court's goahead to fight the elections after his candidature was can celled by the university's election committee, became DUSU president with 16,299 votes, beating ABVP's Rajat Choudhary by 1,590 votes. NSUI was quick to dub the results as the begin ning of a “saffron safaya“, starting from the DU campus, while ABVP claimed that its core votes were intact.
The elections also saw a high percentage of NOTA votes, with 16.5% of voters pressing the `none-of-theabove' button for the joint secretary's post.
Kunal Sehrawat of NSUI won the post of vice-president, while Mahamedhaa Nagar and Uma Shankar of ABVP won the posts of secretary and joint secretary , respectively . Over 54,000 votes were polled for each of these posts. The far-left AISA, which has been gaining grounds in DU in the last three-four year, lost in terms of vote share (from 11.8% in 2016 to 8.9% in 2017 for the post of president).
The results were a jolt for the ABVP , which has dominated DU student politics in recent years, having won at least three of the four posts in every election since 2010, with the exception of 2012.These included clean sweeps in 2014 and 2015.
“Of course, it is a disappointment to lose two seats.But we have maintained our support base in DU and our votes haven't been reduced.We look forward to working together on student issues with NSUI in DUSU as they have come on an equal platform. We lost the two other two posts narrowly ,“ said Saket Bahuguna, national media convener, ABVP .
NSUI saw the results as a wider vote against BJP . “This is the beginning of the `saf fron safaya' starting from DU campus. The students saw through the way PM Modi campaigned for ABVP through his televised address to the youth. And this is not only a mandate against the ABVP's violence on campus starting with Ramjas college to Law Faculty , Hyderabad Central University to Jawaharlal Nehru University , but also a vote against the central government's work in last three years,“ claimed Amrish Ranjan Pandey , national spokesperson, Indian Youth Congress.
Riding on the anti-ABVP sentiment, NSUI's vote share for the post of president increased from 24.7% in 2016 to 29.8% this year. While it won the president's post comfortably , its winning margin for post of vice president was just 175 votes.
On the other hand, the group missed the chance of inflicting a bigger defeat on ABVP , losing the joint secretary's post by 342 votes.
Tuseed's victory itself is significant as on the day of issuing the final list of candidate, the DU election committee had cancelled his nomination. He approached the Delhi high court and got his candidature reinstated just two days to campaign.
“It is a major comeback for us (NSUI) in DU. We won because of our work for the students despite being out of DU in 2014 and 2015. The mandate is also against the attack on liberal and democratic values unleashed by the ABVP . DU students have given us a huge responsibility to fight for their rights,“ said Tuseed.
Another highlight of the elections were a significant increase in the number students opting for NOTA. Of the 54,603 votes polled for the post of joint secre tary , 9,028 went to NOTA. For the post of president, 5,162 students pressed the NOTA button.
The victorious NSUI candidates met Congress president Sonia Gandhi as the party sought to give the result a wider political significance.
“Traditionally , ABVP used to win the DUSU polls till 1985 while in the later years, it became a mixed contest between NSUI and the saffron body . But never during these years had any outfit asked for rejection of nomination papers on fraudulent grounds which had to be restored by the high court. This is a manifestation of the subversion of Indian universities by the NDA-BJP government,“ Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said.
Many observers saw the violence in Ramjas college on February 21, 2017, followed by the cancellation of a play on nationalism at SGTB Khalsa college's fest as brazen intimidation by the ABVP-led DUSU, which also allegedly led to disallowing of three plays in a street play event at Ramjas and postponement of an Independence Day event at Delhi School of Economics due to security concerns.
The alleged involvement of DUSU president Amit Tanwar in the reported harassment of the law faculty dean also doesn't seem to have gone down well with the students.
Associate professor Suraj Yadav of Swami Shraddhanand College said: “Students have rejected the anti-higher education policies of Modi government, resulting in scrapping of seats, charging of exorbitant fees, jobs being decreased and attack on reservations etc. DUSU results, after the setback to BJP in DUTA and JNUSU, is an anti-Modi mandate of the youth and students of Delhi University .“
