Indian politics has witnessed many former Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) leaders–particularly union presidents–rise to high ministerial positions. This holds true for both the BJP and the Congress. As voting for the DUSU elections begins on Thursday, here is a look at its illustrious political past.
The late Arun Jaitley fondly remembered his days at Delhi University even when he was a minister. An Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) candidate, Jaitley was the DUSU president during a pivotal phase in Indian politics. This was the 1974-75 period, when the JP movement against the Indira Gandhi government was at its peak. When Jayaprakash Narayan landed in Delhi for the first time after agreeing to lead the student movement in Bihar, it was Jaitley from Delhi University and Anand Kumar from Jawaharlal Nehru University with their friends and followers who received him. When the Emergency was imposed, Jaitley was rounded up and sent to jail.
Jaitley never broke relations with his alma mater, particularly Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), where he had studied and which he cherished till the end of his life. He also studied law at the Faculty of Law at DU.
After his student life, Jaitley stayed active in the BJP. He practised as a top lawyer, was appointed the additional solicitor general of India in 1989–which saw him peruse the Bofors papers–became the BJP spokesperson in the 1990s, Union law and justice minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha during the days of the UPA’s second term, and Union finance minister from 2014 to 2019, overseeing demonetisation, the rolling out of GST, and the merger of the railway budget with the Union Budget.
Vijay Goel, Jaitley’s junior at the ABVP, went on to make a name for himself in politics, particularly in Vajpayee’s time. Goel gained fame at the university when the Emergency was clamped. Jaitley would recall to reporters that when he and some of his friends were arrested, Goel evaded arrest and went underground for some months, protesting against the Emergency.
Goel recalls that party members told him to organise a Satyagraha against the Emergency in December 1975, and he decided to make it a spectacular one. “I climbed on the roof of the coffee shop at Law Faculty, covering myself with anti-Emergency placards, and raised slogans till I got tired, as the police were not able to climb the thatched roof. But eventually they arrested me and sent me to Tihar jail,” he told The Indian Express.
Significantly, his father, Charti Lal Goel, was also in jail at the same time, but at Ambala jail, where Jaitley was lodged.
After his release from jail, Goel, who also went to SRCC and the Faculty of Law at DU, became DUSU president in 1977. In the Vajpayee government, Goel was the minister of state (MoS) for labour, parliamentary affairs, statistics and programme implementation, and youth affairs and sports till 2004. He was also MoS in the PMO.
Goel also played a role in successfully bidding for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, which took place when Congress’s Sheila Dikshit was chief minister. When Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, Goel was the MoS for youth affairs and sports in 2016-17, for a brief while. He is currently the vice-chairman of Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti.
Congress’s Ajay Maken is one of the most notable DU alumni who became DUSU president and went on to become active in national politics, becoming a Union minister. Though no longer in the limelight, Maken, who studied at Hansraj College, was an achiever par excellence in his younger days.
He was elected DUSU president in 1985, when he was just 21. He became an MLA at 29, and parliamentary secretary to then Delhi CM Dikshit at just 34. He also held portfolios like power and transport in the Delhi government, implementing Delhi’s shift to CNG for public transport on the order of the Supreme Court.
In 2004, Maken was named MoS for urban development and had a role in finalising the master plan for Delhi. In 2009, Maken became the MoS for home affairs, and in 2012, he became Union minister of youth affairs and sports –the youngest Cabinet minister of UPA 2 at 48 years of age.
* Vijender Gupta, Delhi Assembly Speaker
Another alumni of SRCC, Vijender Gupta, an ABVP candidate, was the DUSU vice-president in 1984, recalls Delhi minister Ashish Sood. In 1997, Gupta had a long stint at the Municipal Corporation of Delhi as a councillor, and he also served as the Standing Committee chairman a decade after he first became a councillor. His sharp understanding of municipal issues was noticed by many when he was the Standing Committee chairman.
Gupta lost to Kapil Sibal from the Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha constituency in 2009. He was elevated as Delhi BJP president in 2010. He contested against Arvind Kejriwal from New Delhi in the 2013 Assembly election and lost. In 2015, Gupta was among the three BJP candidates who won the Assembly elections at a time when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) dominated the national capital. He won again in 2025 with a margin of more than 37,000 votes and was elected Speaker of the Delhi Assembly.
For decades, there was a lull in student leaders transitioning into senior political posts. However, the elevation of Rekha Gupta to the post of Delhi chief minister after the BJP’s victory in Delhi ended the drought.
Gupta joined the ABVP in 1992 as a student of Daulat Ram College, and went on to become DUSU president in 1996-97. However, the ascent was not quick. In 2007 and 2012, she was elected as a councillor on a BJP ticket and became the mayor of South Delhi Municipal Corporation during her second stint as a councillor. In 2025, after she won the Shalimar Bagh (North-West) constituency by a huge margin of 68,200 votes, Gupta was named Delhi chief minister.
Ashish Sood, then a student of Aurobindo College, won the 1988 DUSU presidential election as an ABVP candidate. “I was earlier in ARSD (Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College), but took admission in Aurobindo College. I was elected DUSU joint secretary in 1987 and DUSU president in 1988,” Sood told The Indian Express.
However, Sood’s journey to a prominent position proved to be long. He joined the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) in 2002 and became its national vice-president in 2005. In 2008, he became secretary of the Delhi BJP, and in 2009, its general secretary. In 2020, Sood was named the BJP’s Jammu and Kashmir co-in-charge.
After the BJP defeated AAP in the recent Delhi Assembly elections, Sood was made a cabinet minister with the home, power, urban development and education portfolios.
Other notable former DUSU leaders include Alka Lamba, a National Students’ Union of India candidate who was DUSU president in 1995. She held organisational positions in the Congress but did not become a minister. In 2014, she quit the Congress to join AAP, and won the 2015 Assembly elections in Delhi. IN 2019, she left AAP and rejoined the Congress.
The BJP’s Vijay Jolly, an SRCC alumnus, was also DUSU president in 1980-81. In 2003, he became an MLA after winning the Saket constituency. In 2011, he was appointed the BJP’s overseas chief, and in 2013, the party’s in-charge for Tripura. However, he has yet to attain a ministerial position.
