Reds extend JNU rule, beat surging saffron in stronghold

NEW DELHI: The United Left alliance won all the four central panel posts in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) election, vindicating their poll slogan “JNU lal hai; lal rahega” (JNU is Red, will stay Red), even as ABVP managed to come a distant second.

With Geeta Kumari of the United Left alliance, bagging the presidential post, the JNUSU will now have a female president after five years.

The last time the JNUSU had a woman president was in 2012, when then AISA candidate and now AISA national president, Sucheta De was elected to the post.

At around 2:30 am on Sunday, the JNUSU election committee announced that Kumari, Simone Zoya Khan, Duggirala Srikrishna, Shubhanshu Singh, all of the Left alliance, had been elected to the posts of president, vice president, general secretary and joint secretary.

When the votes at various science schools were being counted, the RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), took a short-lived lead on the president’s post, before slumping to the third position in all four positions, when votes at various humanities schools were counted. Around midnight, however, ABVP surged again to the second position.

The Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association (BAPSA), an association of students from backward and neglected communities, which had finished second in the presidential race last year, trailed at the third position.

Congress’ student faction, National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) failed to beat the None of the above(NOTA) numbers.

In this year’s election, a total of 4,639 votes were cast on Friday, marking a 58.69% turnout marginally lower than the previous year’s over 59%. Of these, 4,620, were counted, and the Left panel managed to maintain a lead of at least 464 votes for all seats.w