New Delhi: The United Left alliance defeated the RSS-backed ABVP by retaining all four seats in the Jawharlal Nehru University students union election. Geeta Kumari, the United Left candidate, defeated ABVP’s Nidhi Tripathi by 464 votes to win the president’s post. She credited the people for the mandate.
Geeta Kumari, the United Left candidate, defeated ABVP’s Nidhi Tripathi to win the president’s post…
AISA’s Simone Zoya Khan got 1,876 votes out of total 4,620 votes to bag the vice-president’s post.
In the central panel, a total of 1512 NOTA votes were polled for all the four posts.
Last year too, the AISA-SFI combine had swept on all four seats.
The election panel officials have been quoted by a news agency as informing that BAPSA’s (Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association) Shabana Ali polled 935 votes. “We are satisfied with the results although we were expecting to do better,” Shabana was quoted as saying by a media report. Out of the total 4639 votes polled, 4620 were valid as 19 votes were discarded after voters put their slips in wrong ballots, the election officials said.
For the vice president’s post, AISA’s Simone Zoya Khan got 1,876 votes out of total 4,620 votes. Khan defeated Durgesh Kumar of ABVP who got 1028 votes.
Duggirala Srikrisha (Left) won the General Secretary’s post by polling 2082 votes. He was followed by ABVP’s Nikunj Makwana with 975 votes. The post of Joint Secretary has gone to Shubhanshu Singh (Left) who got 1755 votes. Pankaj Keshari of ABVP got 920 votes.
Geeta Kumari said, “People still believe that democratic spaces should be saved and right now, the only resistance is from students.” She also promised to take up the Najeeb Ahmad issue, JNU seat cuts, new hostels, saving the autonomy of JS-cash and deprivation points, a news agency report said.
Duggirala said that JNU has become more democratic while promising to reach out to students everyday and counter the aggressive policies of ABVP. He also vowed to defend the debate and dissent culture in JNU.
In the central panel, a total of 1512 NOTA votes were polled for all the four posts. A total of 31 councillors have been elected for various posts, the election officials informed The Press Trust of India.
