From Bihar polls to campus issues, JNUSU candidates face off in presidential debate

The first to speak was Aditi Mishra, presidential candidate of the United Left comprising the All India Students’ Association, Students’ Federation of India and Democratic Students’ Federation.

Chanting “Jai Bhim, Laal Salaam,” she hit out at the ABVP. “Their attack,” she said, “is not on individuals, but on the idea of India, on the dreams of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar.”

Her speech also addressed issues such as Palestine and Kashmir: “The ruling dispensation is attacking the very idea of India… We will continue to raise our voice for Palestine, for Kashmir’s statehood, for Ladakh’s environment and for the release of Sonam Wangchuk.”

On the National Education Policy, she said, “Our libraries have no journals, our labs have no equipment, and schools are being shut down…”

(Express photo by Gajendra Yadav)

Vikash, the NSUI candidate, called for the release of jailed student activists Umar Khalid, Sharjeel Imam, Gulfisha Fatima, and Meeran Haider, and said their incarceration as “an attack on dissent”.

Attacking the Left and ABVP, he said, “The binary of Left and Right has robbed JNU of its real agenda: fellowships, research funding, hostel safety… The Left has destroyed the campus and the Right thrives on that destruction.”

He also referred to caste violence and joblessness, echoing the political mood spilling in from Bihar’s campaign trails. “In a campus where conversations this week swung easily between Gaza and Gaya, the fight for dignity and jobs cannot remain outside these walls,” he said.

When Vikas Patel, the ABVP candidate, took the mic, the air reverberated with chants from the Left and Right. “The campus is tired of Left politics. For 50 years they have ruled and ruined,” he said. 

Patel also accused the Left of colluding with the administration, “sitting in the council and drinking tea with the Vice-Chancellor while claiming to fight for students”. He referred to lakhs of rupees in fines imposed under the Chief Proctor Office Manual, calling it proof of bias and the cost of defiance.

“The same ideology that destroys villages in Chhattisgarh spreads poison on campuses under the guise of revolution… If anyone will raise the Tricolour here, it’s us,” he claimed, to chants of Bharat Mata Ki Jai.

(Express photo by Gajendra Yadav)

Then came Shinde Vijayalaxmi, the Progressive Students Association’s presidential candidate. Hitting out at the Chief Proctor’s Office manual, she “called it a symbol of surveillance, not safety”. “The students of JNU cannot be… silenced by the state.”

The campus votes on November 4, and results are likely on November 6. This year, while seven candidates are in the fray for the president’s post, three will fight it out for the vice-president’s post, and five each are vying for the posts of general secretary and joint secretary.

In the previous JNUSU election, Left-backed groups won three of the four central panel posts, while the ABVP secured the joint secretary’s post.