NEW DELHI
The Delhi University has announced its students’ union election after a gap of three years. The DUSU (Delhi University Students’ Union) election will be held on 22 September. Preparations for the same have already started. This is the first time DUSU elections are being held after the Covid-19 pandemic. The ABVP (Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad), the students’ wing of the BJP, has geared up for the elections. The ABVP won three out of four posts in the previous election. In keeping with the goal of repeating this performance, it has announced a list of 18 members for campaigning in all 51 colleges and departments of Delhi University. Ashutosh Singh, national media convenor of the ABVP, told The Sunday Guardian: “Our main agenda for the election is to focus on infrastructure development. As we know that most of the students at Delhi University come from outside and the number of hostels is limited, we will voice our support for the construction of new hostels and give pace to the already announced new hostels.” Singh added, “Our second focus will be on the restoration of the pre-Covid academic calendar, in which each semester consisted of six months, which was reduced to three months due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Third, we will focus on bringing reforms to the syllabus to meet the demands of modern times. The ABVP is set to come out with an election manifesto for the DUSU elections on 13 September, and preparations for the same have already started. ABVP campaigners are taking feedback from the students, and based on this feedback, this manifesto will be prepared. The announcement of the final four candidates for the DUSU election will also take place on 13 September.
On the other hand, the NSUI (National Students’ Union of India), a students’ organisation affiliated to the Congress, has also started its preparations for the DUSU election. In the last election, they managed to win one seat. Lokesh Chugh, National General Secretary, NSUI, told The Sunday Guardian: “Our focus will be largely on solving problems for students at the college level, like examination forms, library cards, identity cards, sanitary pads for females in colleges, and the security of women colleges. We have worked hard for three years, and we are confident that this time we will perform better.” Lokesh Chugh also said that they will announce the candidates on 13 September. There are other students’ organisations that are contesting this election, like AISA and CYSS, but the main competition is between ABVP and NSUI. The election will become more interesting after the announcement of candidates for all four posts.