It's election season again on the campus

Police patrolling increases in Delhi University as the student union election season starts. Cases of vandalism and brawls at times threaten the peace. The campus becomes a poker table where each student group knows that to win the game they must cheat. It’s an anxious time for many students.

Ayan Sharma, a former student, says the way student groups – affiliated to political parties – go about seeking votes is “is no different from what it is at the national level.”
As most first-year students are still naïve about politics, student groups put a lot of effort into targeting them.

Traditionally, the groups are supposed to woo voters by interacting with them at a personal level, solving the daily issues they face with college authorities and educating them about their agendas.  But, according to Sharma, it is commonplace to use foul means in Delhi University Student Union (DUSU) elections.

They are set to be held on September 10. The two major groups, ABVP and NSUI, are fielding 15 candidates each for DUSU posts. The other parties are nearly absent from the campus.

In his first year of college at Hindu, Sharma received five or six bottles of Teacher’s whisky when student parties distributed them for free to the hostellers. Each bottle of Teachers’ cost Rs 800 or above, he says.

“At one time I also received hard cash – Rs 500.”  
He says he witnessed someone from a student party entering their hostel with a bundle of cash and giving it to the ‘main guy’ at the hostel and telling him to distribute it equally amongst all.

He says it is normal and it happened every year till he passed out of college in 2015.
Shakya Shamik, another student, says he was interested only in the rain dance parties organised by the student groups.

“If NSUI threw four such parties, ABVP will throw 10,” he says.
These dance parties are not held inside the campus. They are held in various banquet halls and discotheques around the campus.  There is liquor, DJ and dance, according to him. The rain dance season starts from August itself. 

But student groups refute these allegations.

Ameet Singh Teema, general secretary of Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) tells Deccan Herald that these rain dance parties are thrown by different college departments and student groups don’t have anything to do with them.

The university provides Rs 5,000 for each candidate standing for DUSU elections, says Sunny Dedha, DUSU vice president, who is from the BJP-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

He says the Rs 5,000 goes into printing the campaign hoardings, and pamphlets to distribute on the campus.

If they need extra money, they are funded by seniors in their organisation who are now working and have passed out of college, says an ABVP member.

Money doesn’t seem to be in short supply. Since earlier this month, luxury cars like Scorpio, Honda City – each carrying a sticker with the candidate’s name – are seen outside the DUSU office, dominated currently by the ABVP.

The cars go around the campus, with student volunteers canvassing votes. But Sharma also alleges that student groups bring the liquor in these cars into college hostels.
The cars enter into hostels only after 11 pm, says a warden at the boys’ hostel in Hindu College. Poonam Sethi, who has been a warden in DU for three years, says there is no manpower at hostels to stop their late-night entry.

“Hostel gates are open 24 hours and we have only one security guard in one gate,”
she says.

“This has been the culture before I was there and it will continue because this is part of the system here. It cannot be taken care of by one college or one warden,” she says.
Sethi also says that during election time many fights break out in the hostel amongst students supporting rival parties. Shamik, the other student, also talks about communities ganging up against each other.

Sometimes, students land up in hospital with a broken head or leg. But mostly these remain unreported, says the warden.  But the cases have decreased of late, also because of increased police presence.

Student groups often take advantage of these rivalries between communities.  Gujjars, for example, are closer to ABVP, according to Sharma.

To garner votes, groups focused on separate communities when they elaborate on their election agenda. In 2014, for example, ABVP created a northeastern cell and approached students from the region, saying that they will make DU racism free.  But the cell closed down in 2015, says Shakya.

According to ABVP’s Dedha, election-time fights occur mainly because over pasting of posters on campus walls. In the 2015 DU elections, some members of the NSUI went missing for seven days after a police complaint was filed against them, says Dedha.