While the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) election is scheduled for September 9, its much-awaited debate for the presidential debate was held on Wednesday night. The All India Students’ Association (AISA) has pitched Mohit K Pandey, the Akhil Bharatriya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has Jahanvi Ojha, NSUI has Sunny Dhiman and BAPSA has Sonpimple Rahul Punaram as their respective presidential candidates. While the elections are going to take place for the first time after the controversial February 9 event, all eyes are on the battle which will throw its verdict in the next two days.
JNUSU General Secretary Rama Naga exuded “confidence” of sweeping the votes while ABVP’s Jahanvi Ojha said many students who never listened to the organisation, have also opened their doors to support the ABVP this time.
“We are very confident and our presidential candidate is fully prepared. All our candidates are well known to the students of the university and have huge support which would be known at the time of the verdict. Students have supported all our initiatives and we will give a tough fight to those who are trying to use money and muscle power in these elections… Such things don’t lure the JNU students,” Rama told The Pioneer.
During the February 9 event in which a section of students had organised a “Cultural Evening: A country without a post office” to commemorate the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, some of the participants had shouted anti-India slogans. The videos of this event went viral on some news channels which threw the university into an unrest for months. JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested and booked under sedition and criminal conspiracy. The JNUSU was divided into two over the row as the ABVP member and students’ union joint secretary Sourabh Sharma led a separate campaign against the students who were allegedly involved in the event. This election is seen important for both the fractions.
In a first, the student wings of the CPM and the CPI(M-l) have formed an alliance ‘left Unity’ to fight the union elections. The ABVP, however, has called this alliance as its (ABVP’s) “moral victory”.
“The alliance of the left organisations is our moral victory. They are such organisations which are big and known on campus but their alliance says that they are not confident about the support they have on campus this time,” said Ojha.
Naga, meanwhile, differed with Ojha and defended the alliance calling it a “movement” which is a part of the ‘saveJNU’ campaign. “The way JNU was shut down and a campaign was led against it as ‘shutdownJNU’, this is the fight against that. We don’t see it as an electoral fight only but a movement. It is a part of ‘save JNU’ campaign where left is united,” he asserted.
Ojha, focusing on the campus issues, said she will “invoke” the call for nationalism “only if need be” in her speech.