The Students’ Federation of India, also known as SFI-JNU, took the top seat of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union, while AISA swept the JNUSU polls by winning the rest three of four posts. The central panel results were declared on Sunday morning.
SFI-JNU is a rebel faction of the CPM. After a hectic week of campaigning and counting, the campus went into a slumber on Sunday.
Lenin Kumar has been declared president of JNUSU. He won by a small margin of 200 votes. Lenin polled 1,445 votes out of 4,309 total votes polled, followed by Om Prasad from AISA with 1,233 votes and Abhay, who stood as an independent candidate, managing to get 358 votes.
According to sources, Lenin was leading against his AISA rival Prasad by around 150 votes at the last count on Saturday night.
“This sends a big political message. Student movements need to be a given a better platform as they have not been in the forefront for a while. The Left should maintain solidarity to ensure that JNU’s legacy remains intact,” said Lenin, a PhD student of the School of International Studies.
SFI-JNU members say they have a clear mandate to revive the JNU student movement and launch a struggle to strengthen the party’s agenda of social justice, protecting the autonomy of Gender Sensitisation Committee against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH), and enhancing scholarships.
They intend to build new hostels, fight for restoration of JNUSU Constitution and against the Lyngdoh committee recommendations. The members are also planning to organise a victory march on Monday on the campus.
Meenakshi Buragohain of AISA has taken over the vice president’s post. The posts of general secretary and joint secretary were also taken by AISA members Shakeel Anjum and Piyush Raj respectively.
These elections, which were held after six months of the last union being elected, had AISA claiming 15 of the 29 council seats for different schools and centres of learning.
Councillor seats
SFI-JNU won five councillor seats, two each in the School of Social Sciences and School of International Studies and one in another school.
The original SFI and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) managed to win one seat each in the councils.
The party’s presidential candidate Kopal Singh finished eighth among 11 candidates.
With 20 of the 29 council seats taken by AISA and SFI-JNU, the other nine were shared by independent candidates.
